


His Shining Glory, James Castiel Emmanuel Novak, Sixth Prince of Celestine

by A_Diamond



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Almost Wingfic, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Culture Shock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Hate to Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Minor Charlie Bradbury/Jo Harvelle, Minor Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Minor John Winchester/Mary Winchester, Misunderstandings, Nicknames, Soul Bond, Switching, Virgin Castiel, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:58:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 34,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8036104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: When a mysterious blight devastates the kingdom of Celestine's farms, it allies with its neighbor through a trade treaty: Americana will send food north, and Celestine will send its youngest prince Castiel south to wed the American heir, Dean. It's not love at first sight, but that turns out to be the least of their worries. From culture shock and misunderstandings to conspiracies and assassination attempts, the two princes have a lot to overcome before they can try for a happily ever after.





	1. In Which There Are Two Countries, Two Princes, and Some Exposition

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost, all my gratitude to the organizers of Tropefest; this has been a blast and you guys have been fantastic.
> 
> Cenedra Riva, my marvelous artist, has an art post [here](http://cenedrariva.tumblr.com/post/150402381556/so-this-is-the-art-i-have-made-for-alxdiamonds); the art is also embedded in the fic.
> 
> And a thousand thanks to hit_the_books for betaing, and to badwolfgoddess, fic_me_senseless, and the tropefest chat for getting me through this.

Dean Winchester had spent his entire life in Americana. It was only natural; he was the eldest son of the King and Queen of Americana, heir to the kingdom. He was born in Americana, he grew up in Americana, he would die in Americana. It was a vast land, spanning from one shining sea to another, with mountains and forests and deserts between, and he’d been all across it in the slightly more than two decades of his life, meeting his future subjects and learning about his heritage.

He’d only ever left the kingdom of Americana once, accompanying his parents and younger brother on a diplomatic visit to their northern neighbors.

Celestine was larger even than Americana, though less populous. It offered a colder, less forgiving landscape full of craggy peaks and icy rain nine or ten months out of the year. The Winchesters had visited during the summer, because they were royalty, not suicidal. That was also why they hadn’t made a similar trip to the south; Americana’s relations with Malevale were dicey at best, and most likely they would have met with a convenient and fatal accident before making it home.

But Celestine was more welcoming—culturally, if not environmentally, anyway. Dean didn’t remember a lot of details from the visit, having been barely eight at the time, but he recalled a painfully formal level of hospitality and obeisance from the servants. No one but royalty would look them in the eye or address them by name, even when invited. Even the nobles, when referring to little Sammy, had never even called him _Your Highness_. It was always _Prince Samuel_. Sammy hated being called _Samuel_. Of course, he hated being called _Sammy_ now, too.

Dean was used to being clucked at by cooks when he stole pies from the kitchen, and launching impromptu wrestling matches with the maids’ sons, and being called _idjit_ by his father’s Captain of the Palace Knights. He’d found the whole experience incredibly weird and lonely.

They’d dined every night in the large banquet hall with the King, who’d died only a few years later, and his many children. The only one of them Dean could even name with any certainty was the eldest son, Michael, and that was only because he’d become King after his father’s death.

For a reason Dean hadn’t understood at the time, and King John had always refused to clarify since, there had been no declaration of alliance between Americana and Celestine. The two kingdoms weren’t at war, by any means, but neither was there much trade or travel between them.

Celestine stayed a frigid and hierarchical bastion in the north, Americana a warmer, freer expanse in the middle. And as for Malevale, well. No one liked Malevale.

~~~~~

His Shining Glory, James Castiel Emmanuel Novak, was the sixth and youngest prince of Celestine. He was named for his father, His Exalted Eminence, James Charles Michael Novak, King of Celestine. To avoid confusion, his family called him Castiel, but in all other contexts he was Prince James.

He had, as could be expected, five brothers. In order, from the Crown Prince to the Fifth Prince of Celestine, they were Their Shining Glories Michael, Nicholas (who preferred to go by his second name, Lucifer, after their grandfather), Raphael, Gabriel, and Gadreel.

Castiel had sisters, too. Three of them, also all older than him; as his mother had died giving birth to him, he would be the last of King James’s children. Anna, Hannah, and Muriel (Their Radiant Beauties, First through Third Princesses of Celestine) were honored and cherished and absolutely not in line for the throne. Castiel, who would only succeed his father if all five of his brothers managed to die without heirs, sometimes found more in common with his sisters than any of his brothers.

Castiel did not spend a great deal of time with any of his siblings, even as a child. Michael and Lucifer were nearly grown men by the time he was born, busy with affairs of state and military. Michael was Crown Prince, and would one day—which turned out to be sooner than anyone expected—be King; Lucifer was his most trusted General, and second in line should something happen to the eldest.

Raphael and Gadreel were also forces to be reckoned with upon the training ground, as was considered appropriate for younger princes to prove themselves. Had Celestine seen war in the last two generations, they would have been on the front lines. As it was, Raphael sat at Lucifer’s right hand and Gadreel was entrusted with the Palace guard.

Gabriel ought to have taken that role, but had found himself better suited to drink and gambling. He had not been outright disowned or cut off from succession, but neither was he welcome to dine with His Eminence any longer the way the rest of the children were.

Castiel should have been trained as a soldier as well, but his father had found him too dear, too much like the late Queen, to allow it. After Michael’s coronation, Castiel had again asked after his duty, but the new King had told him he was too old to begin fresh.

And so, while his brothers planned and sparred, Castiel more often joined his sisters’ lessons as they were taught to present themselves favorably in court, reflect well upon Celestine should they be chosen as consorts or spouses to foreign royalty.

Even more often than that, since no one expected him to be married off for any important purpose, he spent his time alone in the library. By the time he came of age, he had read every single book in the extensive collection. The nearest he had to friends were the librarian, Joshua, and his personal steward, Inias. It had taken until he was a grown man to get them to call him _Prince James_ instead of _Shining Glory_ or even just _Glory_. Having them address him as _Castiel_ was entirely out of the question.

The loneliness didn’t bother him so much as the sense of being useless; purposeless. But there was nothing to be done about that.


	2. In Which One Prince Misbehaves and Makes a Friend

Dean checked the lock on his door one more time before crouching down to reach under his bed. It took a bit of groping, and a lot of self control not to swear loudly when he knocked his head on the roughly hewn logs holding up his mattress, but eventually he found the rough canvas sack he’d stashed there. The palace maids weren’t lazy, they swept under there every morning after he left, but he’d been careful to wedge it up between two pieces of the bed frame. Thus his secret had remained safe and undisturbed, waiting for him to reclaim it.

Drawing the bag out into the open, Dean sat on the floor beside the bed and glanced again at the door, paranoid, to be sure nothing had changed and no one had snuck in. If they had, there would have been some pretty powerful magic involved and Dean really couldn’t have done anything about it anyway, plus it would mean he had a lot bigger problems to worry about. So, unless an invisible wizard assassin was planning to kill him, he might as well get on with it.

From the old, dirty bag, he pulled a set of old, dirty clothes—bought off a very confused gardener’s aide who had nonetheless been perfectly happy to trade the worn outfit and his silence for a couple gold coins—and, with yet another check of his privacy, changed into them.

They’d been washed (by him, by hand, under cover of darkness) a few times since coming into his possession, but the dirt that clung to the seams and discolored the thin fabric would never quite come out, and that suited him just fine. The brown-blue shirt and rough pants let him blend in among the lower town, especially once he’d affixed the fox fur beard and mustache that hid his princely face.

He liked being able to mingle with the people of his kingdom as an equal, to see what they did and hear what they thought in a way he’d never be privy to as Crown Prince Dean with his personal knights. He’d only ever heard good things about his parents, which was heartening but definitely not a surprise; they were good rulers, fair and concerned for the welfare of all their subjects.

He’d also picked up on a growing concern over the tensions with Malevale, though he couldn’t say why. Relations with the southern country were no better or worse than they’d been for the past ten years at least, yet the topic was coming up more and more in the chatter he overheard. That was what he wanted to investigate more, see if he could track down a source for the fearful gossip.

And for that, he needed to be unnoticeable. A feel for magic, like Sammy had, might have made the process easier, but it also would have been a lot less fun.

Sneaking out of his own chambers past the exceptionally well-trained knights was a challenge of its own; Dean hadn’t always succeeded. But Benny and Jo both had the day off, and they were the only ones who could recognize him in all the disguises he’d tried. The others he could talk his way away from, as long as they didn’t catch him in any restricted areas.

Not half an hour later, he found himself in a heap in the dungeon, trying to untangle himself and brush smelly straw from his face as Garth locked him in a cell with a waggling finger.

“You just stay there until we get the prince,” Garth told him earnestly. “He’ll know what to do with you.”

Still sprawled on the floor, Dean watched him go with a mix of fondness and exasperation. Garth’s easygoing charm was one of his best qualities, but it did make him act a little more like a nursemaid than a trained warrior sometimes.

“Sounds like you might be here a while,” a cheerful voice said after Garth had bolted the heavy iron door behind him.

Dean picked himself up and ambled over to the bars so he could get a good look at the person imprisoned across the way from him. A woman, his age or a little younger, with red hair and sparkling eyes smiled a very, very mischievous smile at him. She was dressed in neutral brown clothes, cleaner and more well-fitted than his, and he was surprised to see that her hands were shackled through the bars for an added level of captivity.

Catching his gaze, she grinned and waggled her fingers. “Oh, these?” The manacles rang against the bars of the cell door with her movement. “Puppy’s a little grumpy because I lifted his sausage roll this morning, plus I already slipped out on him once today. He thinks this’ll make it harder.” Her tone made it clear he thought wrong. But—

“Puppy?”

She jerked her head towards the door. “Same one who brought you in.”

Garth. Puppy. Dean had to admit that fit. “If you already got out once, what’re you doing back here?”

“Oh, I can get out any time,” she said brightly. “I just like coming to visit.”

“Huh.” Dean looked her over again, trying to read some evil motive behind her upbeat cheer, but all he saw was a girl with a really weird idea of fun. He supposed he couldn’t judge her hobby, given the situation he found himself in.

“But back to you.” She flashed him another bubbly smile. “How long do you think Puppy’s gonna run around looking for the prince before someone figures out he’s down here in a cell?”

Crap.

“Whowhat?” Dean protested, totally smooth. “Prince, where? Me? No.”

“Right,” she drawled with a smirk. “And I don’t let myself get caught pickpocketing royal knights just to chat up the hot one.”

Now that was a motive Dean could appreciate. There were a lot of hot knights, he’d _appreciated_ some of them himself in a casual and fun manner over the years, but he wondered who she had her eye on. Obviously not Garth, since she hadn’t been chatting him up at all. He was about to ask, and not just to derail the conversation again, but she wouldn’t be deterred.

“Let’s make a deal. You tell me why the Prince of Americana is dressing up like a commoner and getting thrown into his own dungeon, and I’ll get you out of here before Puppy comes back and discovers your secret.”

“I thought you were waiting for the hot one?” he asked to stall for time. She seemed harmless enough (in the things that mattered, at least), and she clearly had him pegged for who he was. It still felt risky to come right out with it, though, so maybe he could find something else to bargain with.

Or he could just wait for Garth. In the worst case, he’d have to put up with the man’s disappointed puppy eyes for a week or two before he found a way to cheer him up again.

Unless Garth raised the alarm about the missing prince and the strange lurker before coming back down to the dungeon, probably with Bobby and maybe even Dean’s father.

Okay, that option was definitely out. If he couldn’t talk the woman into a different deal, he’d have to give her the information she wanted.

She didn’t look impressed with his latest attempt at deflection, but she answered anyway, sighing a little. “Yeah, I’ve been here a couple hours already. She usually comes down before now if she’s coming.”

Well, that narrowed it down considerably. Despite knighthood being open to women since before his mother’s time—that was how she’d met his father and become Queen, after all—the vast majority of knights were men. With that, plus a quick mental review of the duty roster, he had a newfound understanding of why one of his knights had seemed a little flustered every time he ran into her coming up from the dungeon.

He offered the woman a slow smile across the corridor, and she raised her eyebrows in interest.

“So it’s a bit of a standing date you two have, sounds like. What’s her name?”

It was a bit of a mean question; he knew she didn’t know, and she knew he knew she didn’t know, and so on. All that knowledge was reflected in her offended pout, though there was still a hint of playfulness to it.

“New deal,” he suggested. “You get me out of here, I’ll swing you a proper introduction with the hot one. You won’t even have to get yourself arrested.”

The woman looked thoughtful. “Will she still be in uniform?”

“Do you want her to be?”

“I like uniforms.” She smiled at him, a little quirk of her lips that would have been flirtatious if it weren’t so obviously not meant for him.

Dean threw his head back and laughed.

“I’m Charlie, by the way,” she said, sticking a hand through the bars of his cell, either in introduction or to seal the deal.

Blinking, he took it and let her shake their hands up and down enthusiastically for whatever reason, as he stared past her at the now empty cell across from him. The manacles she’d been chained in were woven around the iron posts in a weird but endearing smiley face.

“Charlie,” he said, looking back to her smug yet somehow still charming face, “I do believe it’s absolutely great to meet you.”

“It is,” she agreed as she jimmied the lock to his door without effort. “I’m awesome. Come on, there’s a couple ways out from here. We just need to see who’s where so we can sneak on by.”

After another impressive show of skill unbarring the iron door that had been barred from the outside—Dean had been watching carefully, wanting to know any weaknesses in his castle, and he still didn’t know how she’d done it—they scarpered around corners and ducked into alcoves and shushed each other’s giggles all the way up the stairs and out through the servants’ corridors. Then they went back in through different servants’ corridors when they decided Dean should get back to his room as soon as possible.

They’d just made it inside and stifled another round of semi-hysterical laughter when someone walked up to the door. After a skipped heartbeat of staring, wide-eyed and panicked but still having the time of their lives, Dean hurled himself into his bed and pulled the covers up over his dishevelled clothes and fake-bearded face at the same moment as Charlie threw herself to the floor and rolled underneath the bedframe.

Someone, Dean’s money was on Garth, knocked barely a breath later, then pushed open the door without waiting for an answer that he clearly didn’t expect to get.

“What?” Dean growled. He couldn’t look back without revealing his disguise, and he couldn’t talk normally without laughing or giving away his breathless, so probably-Garth was treated to a gruffer prince than he deserved.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, bewildered and delighted and embarrassed all at once as only Garth could manage. “Dean, there you are!”

“Where else would I be? I don’t have any meetings or training scheduled this early today!”

Keeping his voice grumpy was getting harder and harder, because he could feel Charlie shaking the bed with her silent laughter and it made him want to join in. He needed to make this as quick as possible.

“Well, see, that’s what I thought, but then I came in to talk to you earlier,” Garth started, but Dean had to cut him short.

“I’m going back to sleep. Don’t bother me for at least another hour.”

“Right you are!” Garth chirped, far too cheerful for someone who’d just been chewed out by his prince. But then, that was Garth. “He can stew down there a few more hours, no problem. Maybe it’ll make him more likely to tell us—”

“Garth.”

“—what he was up to, anyway. That girl down there’s a tricky one, though, probably better if we don’t leave them alone too long—”

“Garth!”

“Yes, Dean?”

“Out!”

“Right, sorry, outing. Sweet dreams!”

Garth shuffled out, whistling loud and off-key, and Dean barely held it together long enough for the door to slam shut in his wake.

“Oh my Goddesses,” Charlie gasped as she pulled herself out from under the bed. “I can’t believe that’s a thing that just happened in my life. I don’t know what to do with myself now. How am I ever going to top this? I just hid under the _crown prince’s bed_ while he _lied to the Palace Knights_ so I could escape. That’s... That’s as good as it gets. What’s a thrill-seeking, questionably moral girl supposed to do with her time now?”

Dean grinned. “She’s supposed to meet the crown prince at the Witch’s Tit after dark tomorrow night so he can introduce you to Hot Knight Jo.”

“Jo,” Charlie repeated dreamily. “On it, Your Highness!” With a flamboyant mockery of the Palace Knights’ salute, she slipped out his open window and was gone.

Flopping back on the bed, Dean grinned beneath his scratchy red facial hair and tried to picture just how much Jo was going to beat on him for this.

Seeing as she seemed to be just as sweet on the miscreant, probably not _too_ badly.

Hopefully.


	3. In Which Another Prince Behaves and Does Not Make Friends

“Prince James.”

Castiel looked up from his book of maps, his surprise twofold. Interruptions when he was in the library rarely occurred, and for it to be someone other than Inias or Joshua was particularly infrequent. Having two unfamiliar palace guards break his concentration, and for one of them to address him by name instead of title was more than a bit strange. It unsettled him.

That simply wasn’t a thing that was done, not in Celestine. It may not have been out of place in Americana; Castiel had never been there, but he remembered the royal family’s visit and their laxer expectations for formalities, and the very few histories and biographies he’d read by American authors followed that same trend. He didn’t know about Malevale, but that was just fine. No one ever wanted to know very much about Malevale.

Any of Castiel’s brothers, and at least two of his sisters, would have taken offense immediately—though Gadreel’s hurt pride would have been on behalf of the monarchy as a whole, not for his slighted place in it, and Gabriel’s would have been mostly for theatricality’s sake. But Castiel was the sixth prince of six, and his birth the reason for his universally beloved mother’s death. He had early on become comfortable with being overlooked.

“Yes?”

“Prince Lucifer has requested you meet him in the east advisory chamber.”

Only many long years of training on the expected behaviour of a prince, for even the least important of the princes, kept Castiel from wincing as he rose from his seat. He hadn’t intended to correct the guard’s mistake, but Lucifer would not be so forgiving. Better to chastise him now than have him stripped of his duties or even flogged for repeating his disrespect in front of someone who cared more.

But even as he opened his mouth to say something, he paused and reconsidered. Gadreel was in charge of the Guard, and though he was generally a gentle soul, he took his responsibilities very seriously. If one of his guards was in need of discipline, Gadreel would prefer to know and undertake it himself.

It also would not be wise to undercut Gadreel’s authority by seeming to step into his place. Gadreel would know he meant no harm, but gossip spread quickly amongst the palace staff, and Castiel wanted no part of it. No, better to inform his brother and let him handle it.

So instead of making a note of the guard’s insolence, he only said, “Thank you, I will.”

His feeling of unease set in again when the guards started to follow him out of the library and down the wide hallway. He stopped and turned.

“I appreciate your concern for my well-being, but I don’t require an escort.”

This time, the other guard spoke. “Our orders were to pass you the message and see you made it safely to the chamber.”

Intangible needles pricked up Castiel’s spine, a vague but unsettling premonition. Though it was an uncomfortable feeling, he imagined them sewing threads of steel along his backbone as they disturbed him and the pretense gave him the confidence to straighten his back to the regal pose he so rarely adopted. It included a smile, fake and kind, which he hated to feel on his face.

“I’m sure my brother didn’t mean to suggest that you and your fellows have failed to keep this entire palace safe for us, nor would he think there is any reason for me to be in danger in my own home. I’ll be sure to pass along your diligence.”

It was the clearest dismissal he could give without saying the words, and the guards knew it. After a moment of tight faces, which he feared would precede them trying to insist, they exchanged a look and nodded. They turned and walked the other way down the corridor, their expressions still disgruntled, and Castiel made a note to have a longer discussion with Gadreel than he’d originally planned. It wasn’t just an issue with formal address; these two had a serious attitude problem that Castiel hoped was not indicative of the Palace Guard as a whole.

Castiel kept more alert of his surroundings than usual as he made his way to the east councilroom, but the guards hadn’t continued to follow. At least, not that he was able to tell. He wasn’t trained in subterfuge or the slightest bit magically adept, so they could have been evading him, but it seemed unlikely.

His concerns were overwritten—or, rather, they were underlined by new, much deeper concerns—when he got to the appointed chamber and found it empty. The sparse room held only a large table and a dozen chairs, so though Castiel wouldn’t have been surprised if Lucifer had planned the whole thing to jump out at him, there was nowhere he could hide.

Castiel was absolutely certain the guard had said the east advisory chamber. Still, he made his way to the other side of the palace. He would check the west chamber, just in case there had been a miscommunication somewhere down the line. Lucifer wasn’t fond of being ignored.

Sure enough, upon reaching the western room, he found Lucifer perched languidly on top of the table. His back had been to the entrance, one leg propped up and the other dangling over the edge of the table, but he dropped his head backwards to look as the door opened. The expression that flashed over his face was impossible to decipher, between the short span of its existence and its upside-down orientation, and was quickly replaced by Lucifer’s usual smile.

The movement also revealed a second person in the room: Raphael, sitting in a chair just past Lucifer and frowning. Raphael often frowned.

“Brother!” Lucifer cried enthusiastically. “So good to see you venturing out of the dusty old archives! But all alone, when I’d asked my messengers to see you safely here! Should I have them flogged?”

“Lucifer,” Castiel greeted. “Raphael. I told the guards they could resume their duties. I don’t fear for my safety here.”

Lucifer grinned widely at him, then sat up and spun around on the table until he was facing Castiel, legs folded casually. “Of course, of course. I just worried you might get lost. And rightly so, I think, given how long it took you to find us.”

Castiel frowned at him. “I know my way around the palace. They said you were waiting in the east chamber.”

“Oh, the scoundrels! I’d say a flogging is definitely in order. Wouldn’t you, Raphael?”

Behind Lucifer’s back, Raphael nodded his agreement, but his face remained blank.

Castiel held back a sigh. Unless he was in the heat of battle, Lucifer took rarely took life any more seriously than Gabriel. When he focused, though, most often on the destruction of his enemies—even in training skirmishes against his brothers—he was a glacier. Icy and hard, the depths of his planning fathomless, letting men break themselves against his forces before grinding them to dust.

“Please don’t flog anyone on my behalf, Lucifer. I’m sure it was a simple misunderstanding.”

“No one ever lets me have any fun,” Lucifer complained with an exaggerated pout. Then his expression turned serious, a look Castiel recognized from council meetings and their father’s funeral. “But enough of that. Castiel, our littlest prince, I did ask you here for a reason. Sit, please, make yourself comfortable.”

Castiel sat obligingly, though making himself comfortable was a difficult proposition; with Lucifer still perched on the far end of the table, he had to crane his neck to see his brother’s face.

Lucifer wasn’t bothered by the awkwardness of it. “We were just talking about the blight in the eastern regions, and wondered if you might have any scholarly insights.” The condescending way Lucifer said ‘scholarly’—the way he said all of it, really—came as no surprise. Lucifer had never made a secret of his disdain for Castiel’s coddling, though he had on a few occasions noted that he didn’t blame Castiel for it.

Though it would do nothing to improve Lucifer’s opinion, Castiel had to admit, “Nothing more than was discussed at the last council. I’ve been trying to find information, but it’s unlike anything that’s ever been recorded before. If it weren’t for the reports, in fact, I would’ve thought it impossible for the same illness to affect crops and livestock.”

“Hm,” Lucifer said neutrally. It was possibly agreement, though it also could have been consideration or distaste; it was frequently hard to tell with the second prince. “So it’s pretty much useless for you to spend any more time looking into that, wouldn’t you say?”

Castiel couldn’t see what was churning beneath Lucifer’s placid facade, but he knew his brother well enough to know it was something. Raphael’s countenance offered no more enlightenment, as he just watched Castiel and Lucifer talk without so much as a twitch of expression.

“It seems likely I won’t find anything if I haven’t yet,” he agreed slowly.

“That’s what we were thinking, Raphael and I. We were thinking—hoping, really, hoping is a better word—that you’d be able to focus your attention on something else that we think will be a big help to Michael. and all of Celestine, of course.”

“Of course.” His eagerness had him sitting forward, focused intently on Lucifer. Perhaps it made him look foolish, but he was ready to have a purpose to his studies as he hadn’t since he was a young child, learning his kingdom’s histories and traditions. “What do you need me to do?”

“Everyone’s concentrating on trying to cure the blight. It’s a noble effort, but even the most powerful of our mages haven’t had any luck stopping it. We don’t want to distract Michael yet, but it’s important to be prepared for the worst. If we can’t get our farmland back, we’ll need to start looking for outside help.”

“Imports.” Raphael spoke for the first time, startling Castiel into looking away from Lucifer. “We need to consider who will be willing and able to provide food for our people, and what they’ll ask of us in return.”

“Americana’s the obvious choice,” Lucifer continued, suddenly next to Castiel. He hadn’t heard his brother moving. “They’ve got more farmland than they know what to do with and they don’t entirely hate us.

“But things have been a bit unfriendly since Father got into that argument with King John—you were young, do you remember the royal family’s visit? Anyway, it’s not like they’re Malevale or anything. We just lost touch after the alliance fell through, and haven’t really been keeping track of what they do.

“But if you were to start looking into all things American now, and find out what they find important, what they love, what they need... You see?”

Castiel nodded his understanding, but Lucifer still clapped a hand on his shoulder and bent down to look him in the eye. “If you start that now, you’ll be an invaluable resource to Michael if it comes to treaty negotiations with Americana. We won’t be at such a disadvantage. Can you do that for us, Castiel?”

“Of course. I’ll find everything I can.”

Lucifer patted his shoulder a few more times, a little harder than necessary, then turned hopped back up on the table and sat facing Raphael. Castiel took that as a dismissal, given that neither of them looked at him again.

He passed the pair of odd guards again on his way back to the library, but they did nothing more than bow halfheartedly and continue on their way. He made another mental note to speak to Gadreel about them. The resolution didn’t last past the first American history book he pulled down off the shelves, though; he was far too engrossed in his reading to keep something that unimportant in mind.


	4. In Which a Prince Meets a Queen (For the Second Time)

The Witch’s Tit was a grimy hole of a tavern in the lower town. Cracks splintered the few windows that weren’t boarded up, at least one complete with the smudged impression of whichever poor bastard’s face had caused the damage. Dust crusted every tankard, not the least bit deterred by the drinks slopped into them—whether watered down beyond belief or boozy enough to kill a large dwarf. The plates weren’t in any better shape, stained and chipped and caked with remnants of questionable meals past, but considering how the cook didn’t bother to season anything, that could have been seen as an improvement.

A diverse crowd swarmed inside, from boisterous mercenaries to lewd ladies of the night to solitary assassins, and every other sort of miscreant in between. Brawls broke out nightly, and fornication or exsanguination on one of the scarred but sturdy tables were equally common spectacles.

Dean loved it there.

He could only ever go in disguise, of course, but no one aside from Charlie had ever seen through it. Had anyone asked, he would’ve given his name as Jensen and offered a whole backstory about being the youngest son of a farmer who’d come to the capitol to seek his fortune—but no one ever asked. They just ignored him, aside from sometimes sneering or leering, as he sat in a corner and watched the criminal world go by.

He couldn’t remember seeing Charlie there before, but when he strolled through the battered door she waved him down from a large table that she somehow had all to herself, looking cheerfully at home. She grinned widely, then her eyes shifted to his side. She blushed almost as red as her hair.

Jo hadn’t actually come in her uniform. They were trying to blend in, not announce to the seedy misfits all around that Dean was the crown prince himself, ripe for a theft or kidnapping or murder or whatever else sounded fun. So the Palace Knight armour had been left in her room, but her sword hung visibly at her waist and an assortment of knives stashed themselves less visibly about her casual outfit. She hadn’t been particularly pleased to learn of Dean’s plan, muttering about his idiocy the whole time she got ready.

(Dean was pretty sure she was just being extra ornery to hide her flustered excitement. She’d made him assess three different changes in tunic, blaming it on a need to _look inconspicuous_. The rejected shirts had been thrown at his head because he couldn’t stop himself from teasing her about it.)

She slipped into the dim room next to him, so tense he could feel her clenched muscles vibrating through the space between them. She kept looking around for trouble, expecting someone to start something—which wasn’t an unreasonable expectation, things got started all the time, but they’d never involved Dean before and he had no reason to think it would be different this time. If anything, people were actually moving out of their way.

That was new.

He doubted it was Jo’s presence earning them the chivalrous treatment. No one gave two craps about who was a lady around here, and it was just as common to see a woman armed and seated at the mercenaries’ tables as it was to see one in a dress bent over them. No, the unusual attention seemed to coincide with furtive looks back at Charlie’s table. With an unpleasant prickle at the back of his neck, he realized that maybe Jo was right to worry after all. He could easily have gotten himself into trouble that not even the two of them could fight their way out of.

Sure, Charlie seemed friendly. She’d been nothing but upbeat and companionable during their shared stay in (and flight from) the dungeon. But she _knew who he was_. And she apparently commanded the respect of the most dangerous sorts of American scum. Or worse, their _fear_. His adventure suddenly had the potential to end very, very badly. At least he hadn’t been stupid enough to leave his sword behind along with his common sense.

Forcing a smile he no longer felt, Dean led the way through the oddly hushed tavern. No one tried to stop them or block them in from behind, which reassured him slightly. His wariness must have been obvious anyway, because by the time they reached Charlie she wasn’t grinning quite so broadly. She looked a bit sheepish, actually.

“Okay, I know it looks kinda like a sketchy setup right now,” she said when Dean and Jo stood in front of the table, neither of them comfortable enough to sit down. “But I swear there’s nothing nefarious going on. Or, more nefarious than usual around here, anyway,” she added with a quick look around.

“We should go,” Jo said, her voice quiet but steel-edged.

“Please don’t!” Charlie looked up at them imploringly. “Please, just let me explain? It’s not a trap or anything, I haven’t told anyone who you are or anything like that. They just—they know me, okay? I don’t come here that much so I didn’t think it would be a problem, but they’re just being polite because you’re my guests.”

Risking another glance at the gathered lowlifes, Dean saw none of them had moved. None of them even looked in his direction, in fact, in a very pointed manner. They were giving Charlie her privacy, like she’d said.

“And who are you exactly, other than a thief who keeps getting caught on purpose?” he asked, though he had a pretty good idea by that point. Between her obvious skills and the deference shown to her here, of all places, there were only so many logical explanations. If he was right, it might mean they were safe after all. Or in even more trouble.

“Uh, I might possibly bethequeenoftherogues.” She rushed the words together, so shy and tentative that Dean couldn’t believe she meant them any harm. Not when she looked like she was bracing herself for Jo, Hot Knight of her dreams, to run her through with a sword.

He pulled out a chair and sprawled comfortably in it, grinning at her across the table. “Say that again?” he teased.

Charlie relaxed at his response, though Jo didn’t.

“I’m the Queen of the Rogues,” Charlie said again, more confident this time. “I usually hold court at the Moondoor Inn, but, uh. These are also my people.” She made a small gesture that nonetheless encompassed the whole room and everyone in it. “I swear by the Twelve Lower Goddesses, you’ll come to no harm by them.”

She said the last with conviction, loud enough to carry through the muted conversations going on around them, and everyone fell silent. Then, to a man (or woman, even the whore straddling one ruffian took her mouth off another and her hand off a third so she could join in), they lifted their cups in Charlie’s direction and took solemn drinks before returning to their business.

Dean had never seen such an overwhelming display of loyalty outside of his own knights. Even Jo was impressed enough that she finally deigned to settle in the seat next to Dean’s. She leaned forward, resting (displaying) her forearms on the table. (She’d picked a tunic with sleeves that ended in a split just above the elbow. “Arm muscles are important, Dean,” she’d said. “It’s a lady thing.” Like Dean didn’t know about lady things. His arm muscles got plenty of ladies.)

“So,” Jo asked, “what’s the Queen of the Rogues doing getting herself arrested for petty pickpocketing every other day?”

Her voice was nothing like Dean had ever heard it, all smooth and velvety. Seeing how Charlie responded to it with a sultry grin and bedroom eyes, he very quickly resigned himself to going home alone. Or at least, without Jo. He’d been considering hitting on one—or both—of the bartenders. Maybe having an in with the Queen Rogue herself would help his chances.

Before any of them could act on their plans for the night, a commotion erupted near the door. Dean and Jo jumped up, but so did Charlie. After an exchanged look, they let her lead the charge; this was her kingdom, as it were. The fact that a group of heavily armed swords for hire fell in behind them sent another tingle of unease down Dean’s spine, but he was _pretty_ sure they wouldn’t break their oath. They were just demonstrating their allegiance, prepared to defend their queen if it proved necessary.

It didn’t.

The gathered crowd silenced and parted as Charlie approached, which revealed the core group of instigators: five incredibly drunk louts who hadn’t gotten the notice to cut their crap and so continued harassing the three people they had surrounded. The contained group, two men and one woman who were obviously outsiders in thigh-length robes and loose pants, faced the door like they were trying to get back through it, but their way was blocked.

The apparent leader of the three spoke, his voice clipped and oddly accented. “We only sought to buy supper so we may continue on our journey. Your advances are lewd and unwanted. Stand aside and we’ll depart.”

Like his companions, this man’s robe was pale green and his pants black, and both were dusty with travel. Unlike them, he also wore a short, slightly curved sword on his side and his hand twitched into a fist just shy of its hilt.

“We was jus’ offerin’ you some good ol’ American hospitality,” slurred the guy directly in front of him. He clearly meant to go on, but Charlie made an impatient noise and his eyes drifted—slowly, unsteadily—over to her. He took a moment to process, during which time the foreigners also turned around to look, but eventually he realized exactly who was frowning at him.

“Majjessy.” He tried to bow, overbalanced, then tried to catch himself on his nearest accomplice. They both went down in a tangle. The other three who’d been causing trouble didn’t seem quite as drunk; they managed hasty obeisances before scurrying off to a dark corner.

At a wave of Charlie’s fingers, a couple of the brutes came up from behind Dean and gathered the fallen men off to undoubtedly unpleasant consequences. Dean didn’t really want to think about it.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said as soon as it quieted again. “Gordon and his lot have an embarrassingly low tolerance for the amount of whiskey they manage to drink. They won’t bother you again. Please, let me offer you a meal to make up for the inconvenience, and show you real American hospitality.”

His back stiffened, but he did look slightly mollified. “Are you the proprietor of this establishment?”

“Something like that.” Charlie struggled to hold back a smirk, but mostly managed it. “And if you’re looking for a place to rest, I can offer you a room at a nearby inn. You’ll be safe there, and very well looked after if you tell them Charlie sent you.”

The man looked around, assessing all the gruff and questionable sorts deferring to Charlie, and decided it was a good idea to take her up on the suggestion. The food that was brought out almost immediately seemed to be a vast improvement over the usual fare, though Dean didn’t sample any himself. Charlie had offered, but it was late. He and Jo had eaten at the palace long before they’d ventured out for the meeting.

Once they’d consumed a significant amount of spiced stew and heavily sauced meat, the travellers relaxed, but only slightly. They still held themselves ramrod straight and spoke with ridiculous formality—which made perfect sense as soon as they revealed they were from Celestine. In fact, Dean was a little surprised they weren’t more uptight, given what he remembered about the culture up there. Though, as farmers instead of palace servants or courtiers, he supposed that was reasonable, too.

The couple and their son, a man of few words but sharp, curious eyes, had come down through the mountains that divided Americana and Celestine in search of a new life. The blight spreading across the kingdom had forced them from their ancestral farmland, and since they lived so close to Celestine’s southern border already, they’d decided to leave their homeland entirely.

Word of the blight had reached Americana already, though Dean suspected that no one outside of the Royal Council knew quite the extent of it. The general American populace was concerned but not worried; despite blossoming quickly across eastern Celestine, the blight hadn’t shown any signs of crossing into their kingdom. Also, though it struck plants and animals alike, no people had fallen ill. Had it not been for that, he might have had to give up his disguise to see the beleaguered family quarantined for the good of his kingdom.

He would have to take news of their trip back to his parents, though. If the situation had grown dire enough that refugees could come flooding in, Americana needed to be prepared.

As predicted, he left alone. Jo wasn’t scheduled for duty until late the next evening, so she’d volunteered to “escort Charlie and these fine folks to the Moondoor Inn, make sure nothing untoward happens.” Like they didn’t all know Charlie would be more protection for Jo than the other way around. But the Queen of the Rogues had just pinked up and accepted graciously and Dean had no further doubts about what would be happening between those two.

Jo owed him.

Especially because, by not being with Dean as he snuck back into his room, she wasn’t in a position to get caught by his very irate mother.

“Mom!” he exclaimed, his voice catching with surprise as he turned around from shutting the door and saw her seated on his bed with a scowl. “Hey, I was just, uh...” He scratched his chin, felt the fur beard, and gave up on any attempt getting out of it. “Yeah, we know what I was doing. What are _you_ doing?”

“Looking for my wayward son. Sit, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”


	5. In Which Two Countries Come to an Agreement Regarding Several Things

Americana, Castiel concluded after the first day and maintained through another few months of study, was a very different sort place than Celestine.

He wouldn’t go so far as to call it barbaric, though many of Celestine’s most celebrated scholars and historians had done so with relish. They provided no shortage of stories to defend the claim, and Castiel found himself wincing through nearly indecent descriptions of torture between warring royal siblings and polytheistic fertility rites that allegedly threw together nobility and commoners alike in an orgy of unimaginable scale. If one believed Learned Count Devereaux’s account of it, so much alcohol was consumed by so many participants that even they weren’t sure by the end of the night whose personal extremities had been involved with whom.

That particular assertion strained belief, but less belligerent authors still discoursed about the lack of structured religion, malleable lines between classes and genders, and general frivolity. And their propensity for shameless promiscuity.

Though Count Devereaux was alone in his sordid retelling of the fertility rites, every study of American culture that Castiel could find agreed that they cared little for the bonds of matrimony. A man, even if he were a noble scion, could have intimate knowledge of a dozen or more people before being wed. Men and women, peers and servants, three or four partners at once—nothing was considered taboo so long as everyone involved wanted to be involved.

Many authors speculated that this behavior commonly continued even after marriage, though none could offer any more evidence than court gossip. It wasn’t as though it never happened in Celestine, though scandal and annulment always followed discovery. Due to the magic involved in the marriage ritual, neither party could ever be married under Celestine law again. It had only happened once in Castiel’s lifetime, and the guilty lord had never dared show his face at the palace since.

Other aspects of American culture received equally harsh treatment in the texts. Their clothes were crude and unflattering. Their women were unfeminine and rowdy. Their schools, particularly of magic, were entirely without worth.

The only area Americana excelled in, to hear Celestine’s historians tell it, was agriculture. Well over half of the country supported farms, a much vaster spread of land than Celestine’s fertile eastern region. The kingdom had invested a great deal into developing roads and irrigation channels to keep them thriving, and even the ornery Learned Count had expressed some level of admiration for the project. Celestine had been trying to follow suit, but with limited success.

The blight rendered all that work obsolete.

And so Castiel continued to dig into what made Americana. He wished he had access to less subjective studies on the matter, but everything in the palace library had a distinct judgemental slant. None of the king’s current council had ever been to Americana, and Castiel couldn’t have trusted them to answer him openly even if he had; they wouldn’t risk offending him by speaking bluntly of improper things.

Even Count Devereaux couldn’t act as a resource, as he hadn’t been seen since publishing his book twenty years before. Still, Castiel tracked down and spoke with more people in those months than he had in the past year. It yielded few results, but he was set and determined to gather as much information as possible for when Michael needed it.

He read and investigated and waited, sitting through council meetings and dinners on alert, ready to offer his assistance if his brother, his king, his kingdom required it. Though the blight was discussed frequently, however, the topic of Americana or a trade agreement never arose.

Until one night, months later, when Castiel and most of his siblings were arranged around the high table and servants had just cleared their plates away. Gabriel had failed to arrive for the nightly meal, which was an unfortunately regular occurrence, and Muriel lived at her husband’s estate, dining with the royal family only a few times a year when she was at court.

Clearing his throat, Michael set down his crystal goblet and waited for everyone’s attention to focus on him. It didn’t take long; he was their eldest brother and the king, and they had all been raised to defer to him after their father.

“I have news,” he said, “that will undoubtedly surprise most of you.”

A glance around the table revealed little. Anna looked politely curious, as she always did; Lucifer was either smug or uninterested with no clues to differentiate the two, as was his norm.The rest of them shared Castiel’s confusion.

Michael went on. “For the past months, I have been engaging with King John of Americana on the matter of an alliance. This was done privately, without oversight from our council or his. The matter has been delicate, for both of our kingdoms have needs we hate to risk displaying as weakness. Additionally, many advisors on both sides were present when Father’s treaty talks went awry. We wished to accomplish these negotiations without the influence of outside bitterness.

“We’ve come to a tentative understanding. Before I announce it to the council, it’s only right that you should all know. In this time of dire circumstance, with our crops failing and our beasts dying in droves, Americana has agreed to provide us a lifeline of food. They’ll send us enough to feed our people, even though it risks their own comfort if disaster strikes. This is a generous act by a good king. A good friend to Celestine, despite our past disagreements.

“In return, because this is an alliance of equals and we will not shirk our duty or ask for charity, Celestine—our Novak family—will provide a worthy spouse for Americana’s heir, Prince Dean.”

All eyes, Michael’s included, turned to Anna at that. She was the obvious choice, the first princess, raised from infancy to be a king’s wife. Though fiercely intelligent in private, her demure public face earned her the love of the people wherever she went. And she did travel often, sent by Michael as an emissary to the outer reaches of the kingdom to dine with noble families and smile at hardworking peasants. After King Michael, she was without question best beloved of Celestine.

Michael was about to speak again when Lucifer said, just shy of too casually, “It seems so great a loss for Celestine, all at once. To suffer this blight and as a result have taken from us not only our self-sufficiency, but our favored princess? A terrible shame.” Michael frowned at him and he shrugged. “I worry for the morale of our people, is all.”

Interrupting the pinched look on Michael’s face that always forewarned an inarguable decree, Raphael said, “But surely they’ll be happy for her. If she marries Dean Winchester, she’ll someday be a queen in her own right.”

“I can think of no one more deserving,” said Gadreel. “Other than our own king, of course,” he added with a respectful nod to Michael.

“Exactly,” Raphael agreed. “She will be the best queen Americana has ever had, and Celestine will be proud of her.”

“Right, right, you’re both right. Except...” Lucifer had been looking back and forth between Raphael and Gadreel as they spoke, but here he turned sharply back to Michael with a troubled, thoughtful expression. “Except that it could be a sham. I’m sure King John means well, but we’ve all heard about his son’s, well, habits.”

Castiel hadn’t. No one he’d spoken to had been able to tell him much about the Winchesters themselves, so the show of nods from his brothers around the table surprised him. Odd that Lucifer hadn’t mentioned it earlier, or suggested to him the source of the information so Castiel could find out more. Perhaps he had meant for Castiel for focus on the country, rather than its rulers; that made sense if he and Michael already knew enough about the royal family.

“Do we really think a man such as that will treat our dear sister as she deserves? Disregarding for a moment the political fallout should he stray from their marriage bed, I find it hard to imagine that he’d keep any other vows. When Dean is king, that will mean his parents are no longer there to enforce his behavior. There’s no assurance that Anna will really be treated as an equal, given the rule of Americana as she should be.”

Lucifer let that sink in before relaxing back against his chair, off-handed again as he said, “Just seems a waste of such a promising princess.”

“I’ll do as serves Celestine best.” Anna’s back was straight, her voice firm and clear. If she had further opinions, which she must, she kept them to herself.

Michael chewed his lip in thought, eyes far away as he hummed a distracted agreement. “Yes, of course you will. No one doubts that. But Lucifer may be right that Celestine needs you here.”

The king’s gaze slid to Hannah. Before he could follow the look to its logical conclusion—the only other eligible princess, also prepared to be the wife of a high noble—Lucifer broke in yet again.

“I believe that Castiel’s shown a voracious interest in Americana of late. The way I hear it, all his free time has been spent learning about it. Is that true, little brother?”

Lucifer smiled at Castiel, that same flash of teeth from their encounter in the council chamber months ago, and his plan suddenly came clear. Castiel didn’t know why Lucifer wanted him sent to Americana badly enough to have set it up for months, but that’s exactly what had been done. Michael’s speculative look moved to Castiel and he resigned himself to his fate.

He was the youngest, the least respected, the least useful. Celestine would not suffer for his absence, but it would gain from trading it away. So be it; at least this was something he could do to help his people.

“I’ll have to get King John’s blessing,” Michael said and any final doubts fled, “but if the rumors are to be believed, Prince Dean should be amenable.”

He was—or, at least, his father was. Three days later, Inias stood in Castiel’s room and read off the terms of his engagement to Dean Winchester, Prince of Americana.

“Have I said something amiss, Prince James?” Inias asked as the prince heaved out a heavy breath against the dark oak of his desk.

“No, Inias,” Hannah answered for him. “You may go.”

They waited in silence for the door to open and close, leaving the two royals alone in the prince’s room.

“It’s not as bad as that, Castiel,” his sister soothed.

“Did you not hear the same list of ridiculous terms for the wedding that I just did? The King and Queen of Americana are going to think I demanded them. _Prince Dean_ is going to think I demanded them, that I don’t want to marry him and I’m throwing a fit about it. Or that I’ll expect that sort of pomp and circumstance for every event. Which is not how the Americans do things.”

Hannah patted his hunched shoulder. “Michael is only trying to keep you happy. This marriage changes everything, you know that. One day you will be his equal. Not a prince or a consort, but the _King_ of Americana.”

It was a lie, if a well meaning one. Even if Castiel were truly to be treated as Prince Dean’s equal, instead of being traded off as collateral to buy Americana’s help, Michael would never see him that way.

Castiel stood, shrugging off her comforting hand and stalking to the window, which he glared broodingly out of. “I have no desire to be king. Lucifer or Raphael might be prepared to accept the role, never mind you or Anna, but I am the sixth prince. No one ever thought a throne would come to me.”

“It is the American way,” Hannah said. “The monarch’s spouse rules beside them, not beneath.”

Castiel nodded. “And I will accept it,” he agreed, despite not believing for a moment that it would be true in his case. Yes, Queen Mary was as beloved and respected as her husband, who’d been born to the throne, but she was also much more suited to the role than he: born into an American noble family, a high-ranking knight at the palace when she and then-Prince John had met and courted. She was a queen of her people, not a foreign usurper.

“But if I’m to take Americana as my new homeland, shouldn’t I focus on their traditions instead of trying to force ours upon them? Prince Dean and his parents will think I don’t care to learn about their culture, when in fact I know quite a lot by now. And there’s no reason the wedding should be done by our standards—I’m marrying into the Winchester line, not the other way around. Never mind what they think of me, the populous will never respect me if the first they see of me is acting like an outsider!”

“It will be fine,” his sister assured him. “Think of it as a final farewell to the ways of your birth, to Celestine.”

Castiel fixed her with a look that carried the full weight of just how unswayed he was by that excuse. “You might have a point if Michael were actually demanding things be done the Celestine way, not the epic farce he’s decided on.”

Hannah refused to be swayed by his grumpiness. “Prince Dean will understand.”


	6. In Which Two Princes Become Engaged, Meet, and Do Not Get Along Overly Well

The night his betrothal to His Shining Glory, James Castiel Emmanuel Novak, Sixth Prince of Celestine was announced, Dean spent an hour staring at his parents in silence over the dinner table. King John and Queen Mary of Americana ate their supper unperturbed, sipping at delicate broths and cutting dainty bites of roasted chicken.

“Are you feeling quite well, dear?” his mother finally asked after his slice of caramel apple pie was swept away untouched by the kitchen staff.

He gaped at her for another moment. Eventually finding his voice, though it still came out a little strangled, he said, “You do know Prince James is, you know, a _prince_?”

The look Mary leveled at him suggested she was rethinking her opinion of his intelligence and suitability as an heir, which Dean thought was entirely unfair. “You’re going to be king one day, Dean. Of course you need to marry someone of the proper station.”

“No, I mean...” Dean glanced at his father, expecting confusion or understanding or _something_ , but John just kept smiling blandly and drinking wine. Dean was on his own. “I mean he’s a prince. Not a princess.”

If anything, Mary’s expression got even less impressed. “Obviously. Is that a problem for you? Because we got the impression, somewhere between the stable boy and the cook’s son and who knows how many knights—”

“No!” Dean ducked his head, face hot with embarrassment. He’d somehow thought he was more discreet than that. “It’s not a problem for me. But isn’t it a problem for, you know, the kingdom?”

“Of course not!” John set his goblet down with a clang, frowning at Dean. “Why would you think that?”

“Um. Don’t I need to produce an heir?”

Mary flapped a dismissive hand. “You worry too much. These things have a way of working themselves out. If you don’t find a deserving orphan in the forest, your brother will undoubtedly embarrass himself with a lord’s daughter and carry on the Winchester line.”

Dean dropped his forehead to the table and groaned.

“Stop moping,” Mary chastised, but gently. “I know you were hoping to find someone, as your father and I found each other.”

She reached over and took John’s hand, and they smiled at each other before looking back at Dean. It didn’t really help his bitterness at his situation. He’d always known an arranged marriage was a possibility, though he’d tried not to think about it. He’d at least hoped he would be able to meet the person, have some input in the matter before it was decided for him.

But the treaty with Celestine was necessary, with the constant threat of Malevale roiling on their southern borders. It had fallen through once before and now they had another chance at it; all Dean had to do was marry an undoubtedly spoiled and stuffy prince.

He could do that. For Americana, for his parents.

For his mother, who plowed right through his introspective moment of determination and said, “But you’re not getting any younger, and neither are we, and this is a good arrangement for both of our kingdoms. I’m sure James is a lovely young man.”

“Yeah, okay.” He could do this. “What’s the plan?”

Upon actually reviewing the plan—the Celestine king’s demands for the marriage ceremony as encoded in their treaty—he was no longer sure he could do it. 

“How the hell do you even get a crown of...” He double checked the parchment in his hand before throwing his arms wide in disbelief and rolling his eyes. “A crown of pure white daffodils onto _one_ dove, much less a thousand? Also, where do we get a thousand doves? What’s the point of this crap?”

“The point,” said Sammy, back from his school in the remote mountains for the wedding and still just as insufferable as when he’d left, “is to show Prince James that you respect his culture and won’t force him to conform to American expectations.”

“Okay, but he’s coming _to Americana_. I don’t wanna make the guy feel unwelcome, but if he’s expecting this level of formality after the wedding, he’s in for a surprise. And not the fun kind of surprise you find in bed with no pants on.”

“Dean!” Sam’s outraged squawks were probably what Dean had missed most while he’d been away. “You’re promised to Prince James now, you can’t just go around... Jumping into people’s beds without pants. And please tell me you didn’t do that before. Actually, please don’t tell me, I don’t want to know anything more about your pantsless adventures than I already _can’t avoid_ because of palace gossip. Have I mentioned you’re the worst? Because you’re the worst.”

Dean rolled his eyes and ruffled Sam’s hair, which he’d started hating years ago when he finally got taller than Dean, and had only grown to loathe more with each passing year. He was a man now, or just about, and demanded to be treated like one. Dean refused.

“Calm down, Princess Prude. I’m not going to cheat on my husband-to-be, you know I wouldn’t do that. And for the rest, well.” He shrugged. “It’s not my fault I’m so great that people want to gush about their experiences.”

Sam wrinkled his nose in disgust, but the effect was pretty well ruined by how bright red his face turned. “I said I don’t want to hear about it, Dean!”

At least half the palace took part in the frantic scramble that was arranging an uptight Celestine wedding on short notice. Another quarter took to preparing the palace for Prince James and his entourage to arrive two weeks before the event itself. An entire wing was emptied, painted and aired out, and completely redecorated in the impressive span of four days; which turned out to be a nearly wasted effort when the Celestines actually arrived.

Prince James arrived in a single carriage guarded by five knights, with one of his brothers, Prince Raphael, to serve as his escort. Raphael would also serve as King Michael’s representative in the ceremony, because the king himself would not be coming. Nor would any of the other Novaks.

It was an insultingly small party for so momentous an occasion, and Dean’s teeth clenched behind his smile at the offense. If that was how little respect Celestine wanted to show the country that was saving them from themselves, James was unlikely to be any better.

Sure enough, the man who stepped down out of the coach surveyed the Americans gathered to welcome him—John and Mary, Dean and Sam, and a whole contingent of nobles and palace knights—with a blank, unenthusiastic look. A shame, too, because he would’ve been reasonably attractive if ‘uptight’ hadn’t been his default (and, Dean would come to learn, only) facial expression.

Both princes were dressed in robes like the Celestines Dean had met at the tavern, though these were longer and done in shades of blue and white. James’s had silver and gold embroidery all along the chest, which Raphael’s did not. Nor did Raphael wear a thin but highly polished silver circlet, as James did.

Prince James stood stiffly behind his brother, forcing Raphael to introduce him like a debutante at a ball. Dean’s parents handled it well enough, but when it came Dean’s turn he just couldn’t muster the diplomatic charm to pretend he wasn’t pissed.

Raphael he greeted sincerely, welcoming him to Americana and thanking him for making the trip to accompany Dean’s betrothed.

“I barely recall the journey myself,” Dean told him, “but I’m sure it was long and tedious.”

“As you say,” Raphael agreed with a smirk and a glance back at James. Dean hadn’t missed his mark; even his own brothers couldn’t stand James. So that was why they were happy to see him gone, but it still left the question of why James wanted to be married off to a country he clearly despised.

“And may I present His Shining Glory, James Castiel Emmanuel Novak, Sixth Prince of Celestine,” Raphael said for the third time, reminding Dean of the answer to that last that question too.

James was last in line for Celestine’s throne, which meant he had next to no chance of ruling. By marrying Dean, he got himself a crown he’d otherwise have been denied. If that’s all this was to him, fine. Dean could handle a marriage of convenience, as long as James didn’t abuse the authority he was about to gain.

And it didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. He nodded shortly, acknowledging, “Prince James.”

James’s eyes narrowed in a flash before his face resumed its neutral cast. “Prince Dean,” he returned in precisely the same tone. Good. They understood each other.

With another smile for Raphael and only Raphael, Dean turned and resumed his place next to John. His father looked thunderous, his mother disappointed, and his brother embarrassed, but it was Sam’s turn for introductions and none of them could call him out for being an ass until they were in private anyway.

Sam still found time to shoot Dean a glare as he made his way to the Celestines. Raphael repeated James’s titles _again_ , and Sam—self-righteous little imp that he was—made a point of raising his voice as he bowed his head. “Prince James, it’s an honor to welcome you to Americana. I hope you’ll be very happy here.”

Surprise flickered over James’s face, then something almost like a smile. But only almost, and only briefly.

“Thank you, Prince Samuel. I hope so as well.”

“Please, call me Sam.”

James looked conflicted for another moment—Dean remembered Celestines’ aversion to nicknames—but he overcame it and agreed. Without even looking at Dean, he asked, “Is there a name your brother prefers to go by?”

Dean ground his teeth harder. Being sullen and standoffish was one thing, but talking about him like he wasn’t even there in front of the entire court was willful disrespect. From the muted muttering coming from the advisory council behind him, they hadn’t missed it either.

Sam had, though, because Sam was used to his sheltered academic life and it made him less sensitive to the delicacies of diplomacy. So he just laughed and said, “No, Dean is fine. Sometimes people call him other things, which are all rude and very well deserved, but I wouldn’t say he _prefers_ them. I’m sure you’ll hear some of them before long, and maybe even be inspired to some of them yourself.”

Sam grinned and James’s mouth twitched again, very nearly going up at the corner. Raphael, on the other hand, scowled even more than Dean.

“I assure you, James will do nothing of the sort,” he said sternly. Sam’s smile faltered and James’s tiny hint of a good nature disappeared entirely behind flatness. “My brother is tired from our journey, Prince Samuel. Would you be kind enough to show us to his room before he forgets himself?”

“Oh. Yes, uh, of course.”

Flustered but recovering quickly, Sam turned and led the way into the palace. Raphael followed a step back, striking up a more appropriate conversation about Sam’s studies that finished smoothing his ruffled feathers. James trailed behind, jaw set as he glared resentfully at his brother’s back.

At a wave from Mary, the courtyard cleared quickly. The knights led the Celestine contingent away to stable their horses and get settled, and the peers dispersed to gossip in hallways like they always did. She waited until the three of them were alone before rounding on Dean.

“Dean Henry Winchester, I know we raised you better than that. No, I don’t want to hear it. You have the rest of the night to get over yourself, then in the morning you’ll apologize to Prince James for your rudeness and show him around the palace.”

“He hates me, Mom! He hates it here.”

“You haven’t even given him a chance.”

“Your mother’s right,” John added. “Spend time with him, get to know him. He’s tired and in a strange new place, let him get used to it. I’m sure you’ll come to like each other.”


	7. In Which One Prince Is Not Welcoming and Another Is Not Welcomed

The trip from Celestine’s palace to Americana’s had been both enlightening and unpleasant. Of all his brothers, Raphael was the one who disliked Castiel most obviously and unapologetically. Naturally, he was also the one Michael had chosen to accompany Castiel. Aside from the guards seeing them safely to Americana, no other Celestines traveled with them. Even Inias, who had served him since being sent to the palace as a young boy, remained behind.

The journey had taken nearly a week, and he’d been confined with Raphael for every moment of it. His brother had of course taken every opportunity—and there were so many, as they rolled alone across the kingdom with only a handful of guards riding outside—to remind Castiel of his duties.

Perhaps Michael had instructed him to do so; perhaps not. Either way, Castiel was sure none of his other siblings would have taken such vicious satisfaction in reinforcing Castiel’s position.

“Remember your place in Americana, Castiel,” he’d said more than once, apropos of nothing. “This isn’t about your happiness.”

Castiel hadn’t responded past a nod, his eyes fixed to the changing landscape. He knew everything Raphael told him, but the scenery was unfamiliar and it had been his last—only—chance to take it in. He’d barely left the palace, certainly never allowed to venture that far out into the kingdom. And he doubted he’d have much more freedom in his new home.

So he’d let Raphael’s admonitions flow over him as he studied his surroundings. The unevenly rocky terrain around Celestine’s capitol gave way to flatland only briefly before rising up into the foothills of the large mountain range separating the two kingdoms.

He knew from books that most of Celestine was stone, either smooth gray plains or craggy peaks; only in the east was the ground soft enough to farm. But it was different to see the variety of inhospitable terrain in person, and he only regretted that their route hadn’t taken them through the more fertile lands. He’d probably never have an opportunity to see them.

Though ostentatious, the carriage that had carried them was poorly insulated for mountain nights. Still, they’d made the crossing without stopping until just before reaching the capitol. Only on the last night had they taken a room at an inn, so that they could bathe and change out of their travelling clothes into something more presentable.

They’d risen early to reach the palace by afternoon, and Raphael had insisted on selecting Castiel’s outfit from the single trunk of clothing he’d been allowed. He was to start dressing like an American after the wedding. Naturally, Raphael had picked the stiffest, gaudiest robes of the bunch, and pressed a ceremonial circlet onto Castiel’s hair.

“You want to look your best for a first impression. We don’t want the Americans thinking we’ve sent them our castoffs,” he’d said with a mocking sneer. After all, Castiel was their castoff.

The contingent gathered to welcome Castiel to Americana was larger than the one that had seen him off from Celestine. Only his siblings had been there for his departure, though for once that number included an unnaturally morose Gabriel. He’d been silent while the others wished Castiel farewell, but when he’d surprised Castiel with a hug, he’d whispered, “Don’t lose yourself, little brother,” in his ear with a fierce conviction that had stunned Castiel. He hadn’t known Gabriel had bothered to form an opinion on his selfhood.

That memory helped eased the sting as Raphael commandeered the attention, engaging the Winchesters with polite ease and presenting Castiel like a child with no voice or agency of his own. Or, more accurately, like a valuable commodity. King John and Queen Mary at least seemed sincere in welcoming him to Americana, to their family.

But Prince Dean shattered his last, already faint hope of an equal arrangement when he overlooked Castiel entirely in favour of befriending Raphael. It seemed everyone who mattered was in agreement about Castiel’s worth: he was chattel. Valuable chattel, an item bartered for Celestine’s survival, but chattel nevertheless.

So be it. He could adjust. His duty was to keep the Winchesters, Prince Dean in particular, happy enough with him that they wouldn’t reconsider the alliance with Celestine. He wasn’t accustomed to pandering, but for the sake of Celestine, he would learn.

He thought he might like the second son, Prince Samuel. But his attempt to leverage Prince Samuel— _Sam_ ’s friendliness to learn more about his husband-to-be only angered Dean and earned Castiel a public rebuke from Raphael. Whether Dean’s displeasure came from jealousy that Castiel might stray with his brother or from disgust that Castiel dared talk to his brother, Castiel didn’t know.

Either way, he knew better than to try it again. He didn’t need Raphael’s thinly veiled reminder to behave; Raphael just enjoyed chastising him. He followed, obedient and silent and fuming, as Sam led them through the palace to their rooms. Raphael pretended to be interested in Sam’s academic pursuits, though Castiel knew well he had neither an aptitude nor an interest in magic.

Raphael’s room was before his in the corridor Sam took them down, but Raphael only nodded when Sam pointed it out and continued on to Castiel’s room with them.

The room was slightly smaller than Castiel’s in Celestine had been, but well appointed. Light shone through the large windows onto a writing desk and chair near the window and there was a small seating area near the hearth, which was dark, given the summer heat. The bed, closer to the door, was large for one person but small for two.

Castiel idly wondered if he’d be leaving this room after the wedding, moving somewhere shared with Dean, or if he was to be sequestered here. He wouldn’t mind having a place of his own where he could escape the hostility of Dean’s sharp green eyes, though to that end he hoped this palace had a library he could lose himself in as well.

Maybe he’d have leave to look around later; for the moment, he had a more pressing task. He turned back to Sam, who was hovering uncertainly near the door.

“Thank you, Sam.”

Though he looked like he wanted to say something else, Sam glanced between the two Celestines and then smiled awkwardly.

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you at dinner?”

“Of course,” Raphael answered for both of them. He looked right at Castiel as he added, “Thank you, Prince Samuel.”

Castiel held his glare as Sam mumbled something extremely uncomfortable and saw himself out. They both waited for his footsteps to disappear down the hall. When silence fell, Raphael opened his mouth.

Castiel was faster. He preferred to defer to his brothers, but Raphael’s spite endangered standing, which endangered the treaty, which endangered Celestine. He could not stand for it.

“Enough, Raphael.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not a child. I know my duty and I’ll fulfill it; I don’t need minding. If you continue to treat me as you have been in front of the Americans, what will that do for their opinion of us?”

Raphael sneered; it was his most common expression, after the frown. “Do you really think the Americans’ opinion of you will be favorable? Or that it will matter?”

“It matters until the marriage is binding. Prince Dean may dislike the arrangement—and me—but he clearly plans to go ahead with the wedding. Don’t give him a reason to reconsider.”

“If he reconsiders, it won’t be because of me,” Raphael snapped. “But fine. You can ruin this on your own terms. Try not to kill _his_ parents, too.”

He stormed out of the room, leaving Castiel with only that reverberating accusation to keep him company in the silence. It wasn’t a new sentiment, but Raphael hadn’t thrown it around since shortly after their father died, when a newly coronated Michael overheard the allegation and ordered an end to it.

It wasn’t true, Castiel knew neither of their deaths were his fault, but still, it stung. Setting it aside as best he could, he looked around the room again and determined that he could be comfortable enough there, if it were to be his home. His windows overlooked the courtyard, and he watched as liveried servants hurried his trunk off the carriage and out of sight.

Soon enough, it was delivered to his room with a polite knock. Though the men offered to launder and put away his belongings as necessary, he dismissed them; there was hardly anything to be bothered with.

But as he was hanging up his few robes, he did decide to change before dinner. The first impression had been made, and he was fairly sure one of Dean’s many scowls had been directed at his clothing. The royalty of Americana seemed to prefer a simpler style of dress. He didn’t have any outfits in their fashion yet, but he could at least trade out the elaborately embroidered overcoat for a plainer one in dark blue.

Raphael, quite unsurprisingly, frowned at Castiel’s new robe but held to his word and didn’t comment as Sam led them through the long corridors into the Winchesters’ private dining hall. The room surprised Castiel; he’d expected a formal dinner with at least the council, if not the rest of the court, in attendance.

Sam explained, “We wanted you to feel more comfortable, be able to relax after your long journey. We’ll have a proper banquet in your honor tomorrow, James.”

“That’s very generous, thank you.”

Sam’s conflicted expression appeared again, but they passed through the doors to find John, Mary, and Dean standing beside the table, waiting. The king and queen welcomed them; the prince eyed him critically, rolled his eyes, and sat down.

That moment sufficiently foreshadowed the tone of the entire meal. Mary and John engaged in mild conversation with Castiel and Raphael equally, mostly questions about Celestine and the blight. Dean glared at him whenever he spoke, so he kept his answers short and respectful. Not even that appeased Dean when Sam tried to join in. Any time Castiel said something to Sam, Dean’s jaw would clench angrily. Castiel tried to discourage Sam’s attentions without being too obvious or hurtful, but it was nearly impossible to do.

When everyone else was occupied with each other, Dean leaned ever so slightly towards Castiel and addressed him for the first and last time that evening. His attempt at a calm facade might have started a war in Celestine, but apparently it was close enough to pass in Americana because it attracted no notice.

“Is that the shabbiest robe you could come up with in a few hours before you had to grace us with your presence?”

A spike of cold shot down Castiel’s chest and into his stomach as he clenched his teeth at the insult. It may not have been as luxurious as the robe Raphael chose for his presentation, but it was hardly _shabby_. He’d thought the prince would appreciate its simpler aesthetic, but instead Dean was upset that he looked too unassuming. Clearly nothing he could do would please the man.

Castiel dropped his eyes to his plate and reminded himself of Celestine’s need. “Apologies, Your Highness. It seemed the most appropriate of my options. I don’t yet have a wardrobe suited to American tastes.”

Dean snorted rudely and turned his focus back to Raphael. Castiel picked through the remainder of the rich meal in near silence, pleading exhaustion when Sam quietly asked him if something was wrong.

After the silverware had been set aside, John leaned back in his chair comfortably and said, “James.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Oh, no,” Mary broke in warmly. “You’re to be family, James. You must call us John and Mary.”

Like so many things of late, it was a pleasant sentiment and absolutely meaningless. Even in the corner of his vision, he could see Dean’s stormy countenance at the announcement. In his future husband’s presence, where it wouldn’t directly offend the monarchs, he’d maintain the ore respectful address. Still, for the sake of decorum, he acknowledged the thought with a nod. “Thank you, Mary. John.”

“Yes, of course,” John agreed. “Now, I’m sure you’d like to get to know Dean before it’s time for you to wed. He’s cleared his schedule so that he can show you around Americana and answer any questions you might have.”

Judging by the surly look Dean shot his father and the exasperation he received in concern, this arrangement had not come about voluntarily.

Once again he mustered a smile and a show of gratitude. Internally, he steeled himself for a long, trying fortnight of biting his tongue and avoiding the myriad things that could potentially provoke Dean’s wrath.


	8. In Which First One Prince, Then Another Has Had Quite Enough

After the first week and a half of James as his quiet shadow, Dean was ready to crawl out of his skin with restlessness.

He’d tried, he really had, to give the spoiled prince a chance to relax and act human. But James’s back was apparently incapable of unstiffening. Dean suspected it had something to do with the stick up his ass.

It wasn’t even a Celestine thing. Raphael navigated the line between propriety and friendliness with the ease someone ought to be able to expect from a prince. Sure, their conversations were mostly meaningless niceties, but at least they offered a pleasant diversion from James’s pointed silence.

When he couldn’t open his mouth without wanting to let out the screaming going on in his head, Dean had to do something.

“Look, I’ve been kind of neglecting my knights,” he told James over lunch. Raphael and Sam had joined them—and thank the Gods for small favors, because if Dean had had to sit through another dead meal with a fiance who refused to even make eye contact, he probably would have stabbed himself with his own knife just to get out of it. “So I’m going to be spending the rest of the afternoon and evening working on their training with Benny. Sir Benjamin. You know where the library is, right? Or, uh, just ask Sam if you need anything.”

He fled before the table was even cleared. Before Sam’s could catch up with him.

Skipping right past Benny’s room, he tracked Jo to the archery yard and dragged her back to her quarters. Ever since getting caught by his mom, he’d taken to stashing his disguise there instead of under his own bed. Mary was smart enough that she’d probably had people check, plus it was easier to sneak out of that wing unnoticed than his own.

“Are you sure this isn’t the worst idea you’ve ever had?” Jo asked, having long since given up on him having _good_ ideas. “You’re just going to leave Prince James by himself all day?”

Dean tugged at the tip of his foxfur beard, but it didn’t move. “He’s not by himself, he’s got Sammy and his brother. I just need a minute away from the guy, Jo. I’m gonna be stuck with his grumpy ass for the rest of my life and I’m going to lose my mind if I can’t get a break now and then.”

“And if you get caught it’s going to be a mess of horseshit.”

“I won’t get caught. I’ve never been caught.”

The look she gave him probably counted as treason, but he ignored it. He had better places to be and less judgemental people to talk to.

He found the Moondoor Inn easily enough, despite never having been there before. Though a palace compared to the Witch’s Tit, it still had its share of dirt and disrepair. Dean suspected it was for show; Charlie and her crew had the gold to fancy the place up, but it would’ve looked out of place among the seedy lower town establishments.

Charlie wasn’t in the dining hall when he got there, but apparently she’d told her people to take good care of him if he came calling. As soon as he said “Jensen” was looking for her, he was shuffled over to an empty table with a relatively clean glass and a full bottle of whiskey. By the time she came down to meet him, he was well into it.

“You look like a man who needs to talk,” she said as she dropped into a chair across from him. “Talk.”

He did. He also drank, so he wasn’t entirely sure what he was saying half the time, but he talked and talked and talked. He told her about how he’d always hoped he could marry for love, find the right person and just be happy, and how hard it was to have that dream shattered. Especially since he couldn’t see himself ever liking James, much less loving him.

There was a lot of rambling about James. Mostly what an asshole he was, but mentions of his eyes and his mouth might have snuck in, and Dean couldn’t swear he didn’t complain about not getting a chance to study James’s ass beneath the ever-present robes.

Somewhere in there he finished the bottle and tried to get another, but Charlie wouldn’t let him, so he had to settle for punctuating his complaints with water. When his ranting had died down and he was feeling a little more like himself again, she patted his hand in commiseration.

“Go home, get some sleep,” she advised. “Then try actually talking to the guy. I don’t mean your usual bullshit. Actually ask him how he’s feeling instead of expecting him to tell you if there’s a problem. It’s hard being alone in a new place with a lot of expectation riding on you, okay? Go easy on him.”

That sounded like an invitation to ask Charlie more about her secretive background, but she just laughed and pushed him out the door. “Some other time. Go!”

Mostly sober by the time he got back to the palace, Dean made it into Jo’s room without incident (other than her throwing a sweaty, stinking tunic at his head for waking her up so late). Once he looked more or less presentable again, he headed towards his own room.

This led him past the room where James was staying, so he couldn’t help noticing the light shining beneath James’s door. If he was still awake, Dean could have that talk now. It would be pointless and James would still be an uptight little priss and Dean could go back to being bitter.

He knocked, quietly so as not to disturb Raphael a few doors down, and a gruff voice answered from within: “Enter.”

James sat at the small table near his window, a few candles lighting the book spread open before him. Dean couldn’t see what it was, other than thick with pages that cracked at the edge. He didn’t look up when Dean opened the door, just kept on reading as Dean stood there in mute surprise.

Right when Dean was about to clear his throat to get the other prince’s attention, James finally looked over. The impatient confusion on his features quickly schooled itself to the bland expression Dean absolutely loathed.

“Your Highness, my apologies,” James said stiffly. He stood and bowed. “I was expecting my brother.”

Dean looked back to the hallway in surprise. “At this hour? I don’t think he’s even awake. Does he wake up just to bother you in the middle of the night often?”

James ignored his (admittedly impertinent) question. “What can I do for you, Prince Dean?”

Maybe once they were married, James would get around to just calling him _Dean_. Probably not. He’d probably be _Your Highness_ or _Prince Dean_ or even _King Dean_ to his husband forever. Even in the bedroom—assuming they lay together ever again after the required consummation, which Dean really wasn’t counting on. He expected to be stuck getting friendlier with his own hand than he’d been for years.

But maybe Charlie was right and he could still salvage this marriage.

“I just, uh. I wanted to see how you were doing?”

He didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but that was fine. Actually, it was better. He was showing his concern and asking after James’s well-being instead of just telling him things. That was good.

James didn’t seem to appreciate it as much as Dean thought he should. He frowned. Really it was more like a scowl, which was more emotion than he normally showed and entirely in the wrong direction from what Dean was going for.

“Fine. Thank you. If that’s all.” To contrast Dean’s question that should have been a statement, James made a statement that should have been a question. Then he sat back down without waiting for an answer.

“What? No, that’s not all.” More than a little indignant (and still a little drunk), Dean took a few steps closer. James was being even more ornery than usual. Usually he pretended to be civil, even though his underlying disdain was clear as day. Now he wasn’t even trying. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m trying to be a decent person here and—”

“I understand that Sir Benjamin had a very busy day,” James interrupted, voice tight. “He spent the afternoon at the markets and planned to spend the evening training the maids on how to defend themselves from unwanted advances before retiring early.”

That was the mood, then. He’d caught Dean in the lie.

“I know this,” James went on before Dean could offer any explanations, “because Sir Benjamin told us at supper.” His tone got sharper and more pointed with each additional accusation. “Which he joined us for, though you did not. Also present were your brother, who kept giving me vaguely apologetic looks, and my brother, who couldn’t decide between anger and amusement. Even your servants looked at me with pity.”

“Prince James—”

“I don’t wish to be lied to any more tonight, thank you. It’s late, Your Highness. You should go.”

Of course the great Prince James didn’t like to look foolish. Well, he’d just have to get used to it. Americana didn’t treat its royalty like they were breakable. His kingdom demanded competence and leadership in return for respect, and James had neither. He’d keep making a fool of himself until he understood that, and he didn’t seem to care, so Dean wouldn’t care either.

“You know what? You’re right. I’m sorry I troubled you. Goodnight.”

“Your Highness,” James called quietly a moment later, and Dean stopped in the doorway. When he looked back, James focused intently on the book, but his back was stiff and his expression just slightly too forced to be impassive. “I hope you’ll do me the courtesy of being more discreet after we’re wed.”

It took Dean longer than it should have to process the meaning of that, because he was kind of drunk and James was impenetrable at the best of times, but once he did, the whiskey in his gut churned and soured.

He’d put up with James following him everywhere, silent and judgemental. The Celestine prince looked down on him and his whole kingdom for not being _properly_ uptight about everything, and Dean had gritted his teeth and smiled and told himself that James would settle eventually. But for James to imply that Dean was unfaithful to their betrothal, would continue to be to their marriage—it was an insult to his honor too far for Dean to accept.

He slammed the door and stalked back towards James, anger joining the heat of the drink in his veins, and ignored the shocked and slightly fearful look that briefly overtook the other man’s features.

“Now you listen here, _James_ ,” he snarled, and the familiar name sounded wrong twisting from his mouth as a curse. But then James was on his feet and just as much in Dean’s face as Dean was in his.

“No, _Dean_ , you will listen to _me_ ,” James growled back, and Dean was too taken aback by his own name crossing James’s chapped lips without prefix for the first time to interrupt or continue his diatribe. “I ask for very little in this arrangement. I’m well aware there’s very little I _can_ ask for. My brother—my king—has negotiated the terms of our kingdoms’ alliance and in them I’m chattel, a promise of our cooperation.”

James stepped back, putting space between them, but he was no less forceful as he continued, “I accept that. I will serve my purpose and not overstep my place, but if you are seen publicly to stray Michael will have no choice but to take action. Allowing such an insult would shatter Celestine’s confidence in the throne, even though going back on the treaty could mean starvation and ruin for my people.”

There were so many things wrong with that, Dean didn’t know where to start. “There are so many things wrong with that, I don’t know where to start,” he started. “I’m not straying. I haven’t and I won’t. You’re not chattel, you’re going to be the King of Americana one day, that’s about as far from chattel as you get, that’s—that’s not just for show, your place is just the same as mine. To be honest, I thought that’s why you wanted to marry me.

“I _thought_ you _wanted_ to marry me,” Dean repeated, half to himself, as the thought twisted his stomach to something even sicker.

“James,” he said, low and concerned. Then, “Prince James. You don’t have to do this. I know what the treaty says, but I’ll talk to my parents. We can work something else out. They’re reasonable and compassionate rulers, they never would have agreed to the terms if they knew you were being coerced into this marriage. I swear to you, I won’t let Celestine suffer for it.”

The look James gave him was skeptical, which Dean couldn’t fault him for. Dean was drunk and rambling, had already been caught in a lie tonight, and had just been a breath away from yelling at James like he’d never yelled at anyone before.

“Even if your parents would agree to that, my brother never would. Celestine’s pride wouldn’t stand for it. If we don’t wed, it will be assumed that you’ve rejected me.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Why couldn’t you be rejecting me?”

James didn’t answer, but his wry grimace was both surprisingly expressive and incredibly depressing. Dean had been telling himself all along that James being the youngest prince was the reason for his participation in this marriage—and it probably was, but not the way Dean had thought. He really didn’t have a choice, and he knew it.

He determined to do better. Even if he and James weren’t destined for true love, their future together didn’t have to be doomed to misery. At the least, they could be friends.

“Can we just—try this whole thing again? See how it goes?” Dean asked. He extended his hand. “Hi, I’m Dean.”


	9. In Which Two Princes Meet (Again)

For the first time since he’d left Celestine, Castiel knew hope.

Dean seemed honest in his assertion that they really would be equals. If his surprise at the idea of treating Castiel like something lesser hadn’t convinced him of that, Dean’s desire—however misguided—to free Castiel from his obligations would have done so.

All the misunderstandings that had led them nearly to blows had culminated in this: a chance to start anew, openly and without resentment.

So he accepted Dean’s hand and let himself smile. “Hello, Dean. I’m James, But...” If ever there were a time for this admission, it was this. “My family calls me Castiel.”

To his credit, Dean’s surprise only lasted a few seconds before blooming into the first genuine smile Castiel had seen from him. It shone like the sun across his lightly freckled face and Castiel felt lighter for seeing it.

“Would you like _me_ to call you Castiel?”

He’d never heard his name spoken with an American accent. It sounded nice. He immediately wanted to say yes, but he made himself consider the question more seriously. Until a few moments before, he’d been sure that he and Dean would hate each other for the rest of their lives. It seemed too fast a turnaround for them, to go from that to familiarity without even a period of transition.

But they were going to be married, and it didn’t get much more familiar than that. Still wary of overstepping, he said, “If you find it agreeable. I’m accustomed to answering to James—it is my name, after all, and it’s used by everyone else. But it’s more familiar to me from those close to me.”

“Only in Celestine.” Dean chuckled, but his voice was teasing instead of displeased. “You can just say it’s a nickname, Castiel. And around here, we don’t make nicknames that take longer to say than the original.”

“It’s not a nickname,” Castiel argued. “It’s my second name. It’s not used as a shortening of James, like Sam instead of Samuel. It’s a different name altogether.”

“To tell you the truth, I like it better than James. But it’s still a mouthful, especially compared to what I’m used to. So how would you feel about a real nickname?”

When Castiel tilted his head in question, Dean clapped him on the arm with a delighted grin. Dean acted like an entirely different person when he wasn’t hostile and defensive, and Castiel liked the newly revealed personality much more. Dean probably felt the same way about him, given his open happiness.

“Welcome to Americana, Cas. Get some sleep, we’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. I’m gonna show you all the actually awesome stuff around here, none of the boring crap we’ve been doing. We can get to know each other properly this time, just the two of us.”

That sounded so much better than his experience thus far that Castiel could hardly sleep for his racing thoughts. He wondered what Dean had in store. Given their previous interactions, he had no idea of Dean’s interests or hobbies, if he even had them. If he wanted to take Castiel racing or hunting or sparring, he was likely to find himself disappointed. It wasn’t that Castiel disliked those activities, but he’d been barred from them during his father’s reign—for his own protection, he’d been told. Accidents were too often fatal and the king had been too worried for his welfare. After James’s death, Michael hadn’t been so restrictive, but neither had he invited Castiel along on outings with the rest of his brothers.

Perhaps it was related to what Dean had been doing that day. Castiel trusted him that it wasn’t time spent with a lover, but whatever it was, he kept the secret well enough that even those closest to him had seemed to believe the worst. No, it was too early in their tentative friendship to expect that level of confidence. But he hoped someday Dean would trust him enough; they would have to be completely honest with each other, to rule side by side.

The concept was still as foreign to him as it had been weeks before, discussing the possibility with Hannah. It was also still worrying, if he were being honest. He wasn’t Michael or Dean, raised for the throne. Since his engagement, the plan had always been subservience, a silent and opinionless support to the true king.

But Dean deserved better than that from him; he wanted an equal, someone to help him bear the burden of the crown, and Castiel wouldn’t let him suffer it alone. Americana also deserved better than that from him, and though he’d found his way to the kingdom because of his loyalty to Celestine, he owed that devotion to his new homeland now.

Additionally, though less importantly in the grander scheme of things, Castiel wanted more than that for himself. He may have been content in his sheltered and lonely life, but he’d never been fulfilled. Here, finally, he had a purpose that he could appreciate. It was more than passively allowing himself to be bartered for crops; he had a role to fill that required real effort on his part. It would take work to make himself worthy, he knew that. He had much more to learn about Americana—about its laws and culture and people—and about his new family, and how he would fit into it now that he knew he was truly welcome among them.

He could do it. He _would_ do it. He would do everything he could to be a good prince, a good king someday. Maybe he would ask Dean to teach him to fight after all. Or one of his knights, at least. He didn’t want to appropriate all of Dean’s time, and he’d likely need a lot of training to become a passable swordsman. Dean, and maybe even King John, could also help him with military theory and strategy. He might be expected to lead an army someday.

Eventually he drifted off, then was woken much too soon to the sight of his brother’s displeased face.

Already dressed, Raphael frowned down at him from the side of the bed. “You missed breakfast. The king and queen were concerned for your health. The younger prince was, too. Dean, though, he just looked guilty.”

“Good morning, Raphael,” Castiel ground out. He stretched, holding back an exhausted groan but not bothering to reign in his glare.

Even though he didn’t know exactly how things would turn out with Dean, the past night’s revelations left him far more secure in his station. He needn’t tiptoe around the Americans anymore, and he definitely didn’t need to pander to Raphael; not even to the barely civil extent he had been since their last discussion on the topic.

Even in Celestine, he’d never really been in that position. His lifestyle, boring and isolated as it had been, had existed more or less at the allowance of his brothers. It hadn’t been likely, but there was always the possibility that Michael would decide to require something else from him—such as sending him off to a politically advantageous marriage, for instance.

It was hard to be bitter about that when it was looking like the best thing that could ever have happened to him.

“I heard the commotion last night, Castiel. You were hardly discreet; I’m sure half the palace heard you two yelling. What have you done?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

As Raphael stared at him, taken aback, Castiel sat up. The light blanket fell away from his bare chest—he’d never slept without a nightshirt before coming to this kingdom, but Americana’s warmer nights discouraged such heavy sleepwear. After the first few times he’d woken uncomfortably overheated and dripping with sweat, he’d taken to wearing only light pants beneath the thin quilt and found it much more comfortable.

Raphael grimaced at Castiel’s state of undress; more than likely, he was still sleeping in the long-sleeved shirt common to Celestine slumber. Castiel didn’t begrudge him his discomfort.

“Everything you do concerns me, Castiel.” Raphael snapped back with a put-upon air. “You presume to lecture me on ostracizing you from the Americans, then you get into a shouting match with their scion in his own castle. What exactly were you hoping to accomplish?”

Without allowing Castiel to respond, Raphael waved an accusatory hand at him. “This was your plan all along, to sabotage the alliance and ruin our kingdom. I _told_ him you weren’t to be trusted with a responsibility of this magnitude.”

Castiel wondered which _he_ Raphael meant. Lucifer was just as likely as Michael; more so, in fact. Their second brother had been instrumental in Castiel’s selection and Raphael spoke with him much more frequently than Michael. He’d even been there when Lucifer started Castiel down the path that had led him here.

He only had a moment to consider that before Raphael’s rant continued. “There’s always been something wrong about you. You hid it well enough when you never left the shelter of your library, but I knew you wouldn’t be able to hold it together in the outside world. Tell me what you’ve done so I can try to fix it. Did you insult him?” He gestured at Castiel’s exposed torso and sneered, “Throw yourself at him? Or refused him, maybe?”

Fury sparking a firestorm in his chest, Castiel threw off the quilt and stood. Raphael was forced to either take a step back or face Castiel nose to nose; he opted for the former.

“Allow me to offer you your own advice back, brother. _Remember your place in Americana_. What passes between me and Dean ceases to be Celestine’s business when we wed, but it’s never been your business. No matter how much you wished and acted it were so. Don’t give me any more cause to remember you poorly once we no longer answer to the same king.”

Having recovered his footing, Raphael leaned in, lording the advantage of his height and build over Castiel. His face twisted in rage as snarled, “How quick you are to let imagined power go to your head. You’re nothing, Castiel, not to Celestine and not to Americana. You’re a whore, the most convenient warm body we were happy to part with, the—”

“Hey, Cas. You ready?”

Both Celestines looked to the door to see Dean leaning against the frame with a wide, forced smile. He was dressed casually, even by American standards, in worn riding trousers and a pale red tunic.

Raphael turned more fully towards him, voice tight as he greeted, “Good morning, Your Highness. Castiel was just—”

“Don’t believe I was talking to you,” Dean interrupted again, his voice still deceptively easy. He kept his gaze locked with Castiel’s despite actually addressing Raphael that time. The twin insults brought Raphael to the edge of apoplexy, but Dean’s presence forced him to hold his tongue or risk the offense he’d so readily accused Castiel of. “Cas?”

“No, but I will be shortly. Raphael was just leaving.”

Eyes narrowed, Raphael tried to stare Castiel down. Castiel ignored it, instead watching Dean watch him and trying to read the expression on the other prince’s face. The friendliness was clearly a facade, but he didn’t know Dean well enough yet to see what was underneath, and that worried him. Depending on how much of their exchange Dean had heard, it would be easy for things to slide back into disaster. But Dean seemed angrier at Raphael than Castiel, and so far he hadn’t proved exceptionally adept at concealing his feelings. That, at least, was promising.

“Yes,” Raphael finally agreed through clenched teeth, “of course I was. Will you join me for lunch, Castiel? We’ve had too little time together of late; I’d hate to have any regrets when I return home.”

Castiel tilted his head in silent question at Dean. He had no idea of their plans for the day. Though he’d much rather spend the entirety with Dean than rehash his grievances with Raphael, he also didn’t wish to overstay his welcome now that they were getting along.

Dean’s smile eased into something more genuine, though there was still an edge to it. “I hadn’t planned for us to be back before nightfall, but it’s up to you.”

“Some other time,” Castiel said.

Everyone in the room knew it for a lie, but there was no way for Raphael to call it out without looking petulant. Barely keeping his temper in check, Raphael bit out a farewell and tried to leave. Dean blocked the doorway for just a moment, enough for his intent to be clear despite his falsely apologetic surprise when he did move out of the way.

Dean’s attention returned to Castiel as soon as Raphael was gone. His smirk vanished as his eyes trailed down Castiel’s chest. Castiel warmed with embarrassment, recalling his missing shirt, but he didn’t move to cover himself. Couldn’t, while Dean’s cheeks pinked and his tongue darted out between his lips to guide the lower one under his teeth. Then his gaze darted back up to Castiel’s and away. They both blushed darker.

“I’ll just, uh, I’ll wait out here,” Dean said quickly and vanished into the hall, closing the door behind him.

Inordinately pleased with the morning despite its inauspicious start, Castiel hurried to dress. The robe he chose was short for ease of movement, taking Dean’s outfit as cue, and no other reason. That its blue perfectly accented his eyes, according to Anna, was a complete coincidence.


	10. In Which Two Princes Go Adventuring and Get Along Quite Well, Actually

Cas came out shortly, wrapped in a sapphire robe with a hint of shimmer woven into the fabric. It cut off just at his upper thighs, the shortest of any that Dean had seen him wear to date, and he tried very hard not to read into the fact that Cas had put it on right after catching Dean eyeing him.

He felt a little guilty about that, but only a little. He’d never even seen Cas’s arms uncovered before, so finding him unexpectedly shirtless had been, well, unexpected. And very, very distracting when he’d been trying to menace Raphael away. Quite frankly, he liked what he’d seen and he wanted to see more. A lot more. All of it, really.

He’d have his chance in a few days on their wedding night, but he couldn’t complain about the preview. Or about how Cas hadn’t objected, had actually seemed—excited might be wishful thinking, but at least flattered behind the shyness. Then he came out of his room looking like _that_ , with the gorgeous robe that set off his gorgeous eyes and a flush still darkening his complexion.

Or maybe he was blushing _again_ , because Dean was definitely staring again.

“I’m sorry you had to hear... however much of that you heard.” Cas had reverted to not meeting his gaze, and Dean hated it.

There were a lot of potential responses. He probably should’ve said he didn’t hear any of it, despite the blatant untruth of it. It would’ve been the politic thing to do, to allow Cas a false sense of privacy and let them both put it behind them.

Dean hated being politic, so what he actually said was, “I’m not.”

Cas pursed his lips and furrowed his brow as he finally looked up at Dean.

“I’m sorry I eavesdropped,” Dean said, confessing and clarifying at once, “but I’m not sorry I heard it. If that’s what you’ve been dealing with this whole time, I’m not surprised you thought the worst of me. I would’ve, too. Honestly, I can’t believe your family would do that to you.”

Cas grimaced. It was an open expression, not the least bit ambiguous or shaded behind neutrality, and Dean was grateful for the genuine look he was given into Cas’s feelings. More than anything else, it assured him that Cas was done playing the role he thought he had to.

“Raphael isn’t representative of the rest of them. Michael would not have allowed him to accompany me if he’d known he would speak to me thus.”

Dean’s skepticism must have shown on his face—the man had sent his baby brother off to be married to a stranger and let him think he had no say in the matter—because Cas persisted. “He’s been preoccupied with the disaster of the blight. If I’d voiced an objection to the union, he would have reconsidered, but I saw it as my duty; the only thing I was capable of doing to assist Celestine.”

It didn’t exactly alleviate Dean’s concerns. “I’m sure it makes sense to you,” he said, scratching the back of his neck, “but I swear every time you try to explain Celestine to me, it just sounds more contradictory.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing I have to learn your ways and not the other way around.”

“Hey, no,” Dean objected, despite how much he thought he’d really grow to like the wry twitch at the corner of Cas’s mouth that was trying not to be a smirk. “That’s not how this works, remember? Partners, that means I _want_ to learn about your ways. I bet we’ll be visiting a lot—I mean, if you want to. I just thought I’d start with you, specifically. Where you come from, what makes you who you are.”

“As long as I get to learn the same. Partners,” Cas agreed with a smile that wrinkled his nose and showed off his gums. “So what’s the plan for the day?”

The plan had been to get himself and Cas out of the palace incognito to meet up with Charlie and Jo and Benny (he’d given them both the morning off just for that reason), but he wasn’t sure that was still the plan. Cas would never blend in with that outfit. Dean also really didn’t want him to take it off—at least, not to be replaced with other, less flattering clothing.

He was getting distracted again.

But he did still want Cas to meet his friends, for a couple of reasons. He appreciated that Cas had taken him at his word that he hadn’t been fooling around the night before, but he’d feel better offering proof. It was important that he and Cas be able to trust each other, and that sort of thing didn’t come easily from blind faith. He wanted to build up their relationship, whatever that turned out to be, from a solid foundation.

Cas could also use some friends of his own, Dean was now more certain than ever. Maybe that would need to be people other than Dean’s closest friends, but it was a place to start. At least he wouldn’t be quite so isolated, in a new and unfamiliar kingdom with only his forced fiance and his awful brother for company. Sammy, too, now that Cas didn’t think he had to keep his distance for Dean’s sake.

So maybe his plan just had to alter a bit, instead of changing entirely. “Come on,” he said, urging Cas down the hall with a jerk of his head. “I’m gonna take you to meet some friends of mine.”

It took a bit of convincing to get Jo and Benny to put their uniforms back on, after he’d stressed the importance of dressing down for the visit. They were both less than thrilled with the idea of escorting the crown prince and his soon-to-be-husband to the lower town as themselves, but they hadn’t been thrilled with going undercover, either, so Dean knew he could talk them into it.

Sure enough, they rode out in less than an hour. Dean preferred walking to Moondoor, it wasn’t that long of a trip and he was usually going for inconspicuous travel, but it wouldn’t do to have two princes moseying around the streets on foot. So he led the way on his favorite mare, a big, black beauty named Impala but lovingly referred to as Baby, and Cas rode beside him on the sweetest bay in the stables, an older lady long since retired from general use.

“I don’t require coddling,” Cas had informed him with a (it really shouldn’t have been endearing) scowl when the stablehand had brought her out. “I may not train warhorses, but I know how to ride.”

“Who said anything about coddling _you_? Ol’ Bessie here doesn’t get out much anymore, she’ll enjoy the trip.”

Cas had frowned at him, and at Benny and Jo who were saddling their own geldings, but none of them gave him any sign it was a joke. His indignation had quickly colored to chagrin when he failed his first few attempts to mount and Benny had to help him over the saddle.

Dean had been planning to let it go, not wanting to hurt Cas’s dignity further, but as they passed under the portcullis, Cas said, “There are areas I could use tutelage in, to better serve as your husband and Americana’s prince. Perhaps after the wedding, you could help me arrange things?”

“Of course!” Dean beamed at him, only belatedly realizing he should keep his voice down for propriety’s sake. “Anything you want, even if it’s just because you’re curious and not because you think you need to.”

He was treated to another of Cas’s smiles. They rode on in silence, complete but companionable, for the rest of the short journey. In the quiet, Dean could hear the whispers and mutters grow stronger the closer they got to the Moondoor Inn. People stopped in the street and watched them pass; it was rare for anyone from the royal family to pass through this way, and Cas attracted more than his share of stares.

Instead of looking uncomfortable with the attention, which Dean had worried about, Cas seemed to be right at home, smiling and nodding politely. Something good coming from Celestine’s ridiculous formality, Dean guessed—Cas was much better at behaving in public than Dean was, though by all reports he’d had less practice at it.

By the time they reached the Inn’s yard, a wary crowd was waiting for them. Benny and Jo flanked the two princes more closely than ever, on alert for trouble. There were enough questionable types gathered that if something went wrong, even with Dean joining the fray, they might not have come out ahead; but Dean still wasn’t worried, and even Jo was more relaxed than tense. Charlie’s folks had sworn not to harm them—not knowing who they really were, sure, but he was confident it would hold if he invoked her oath.

Either the inn’s staff had known who he was the whole time or they were trained as well as any palace servant, because none of them batted an eye when the Crown Prince of Americana strolled in with the Sixth Prince of Celestine and requested a table and Charlie’s company. Seeing as Charlie had promised their secret would stay secret, he let himself be impressed with her people’s discretion and delighted with Cas’s reaction. Because Cas clearly had no idea what to make of the whole situation, his brow furrowed and his head cocked to the side as he looked all around the inn, but he wasn’t saying anything. Just observing and trying to figure it out.

When they’d been seated side-by-side at the same table Dean had been given the night before, and the innkeeper had quietly and efficiently cleared the surrounding tables, Cas gave up on coming to his own conclusions.

“You act as if you come here frequently, yet everyone else is stunned by your presence,” he noted, too softly to be overheard by anyone else. “What’s going on, Dean?”

Benny and Jo, who’d been entrusted with putting away all four of the horses, made their way through the door and spotted Dean, but he waved them to wait a moment as he turned to Cas.

“I want you to meet someone. She’s who I was with yesterday, and I swear,” he added quickly as Cas couldn’t quite hide how he tensed up, “I swear it’s nothing untoward between us. Never has been, she’s just a friend. But I think you’ll like her, and I thought you might like to get away from the palace for a while. I like to get out, sometimes, when things start to feel overwhelming. Get a sense of the real Americana, not just how things are up at the palace. Though I’ve always come disguised, before.”

Cas took in the information, looked around at all the people watching them out of the corners of their eyes, and nodded. “It’s a good idea, and I appreciate you thinking of it. I regret that I never saw much of Celestine in all my years there. The trip here was the most time I’d spent outside the palace, and even that was brief. I’d like to know Americana better than that.”

“Then Charlie’s just the one to help us out,” Dean declared with a grin, spotting her at the base of the stairs. She went to Jo first, which raised a few eyebrows but Dean was willing to forgive. He and Cas might be princes, but Jo was her lady; some things were more important than royalty.

Soon enough they came over with a bemused Benny in tow. He’d heard all about Charlie—Dean had been present for some (but he was sure not all) of Jo’s lovestruck stories—but never met her in person.

“Your Highness,” Charlie greeted with a cheeky bow when she got to the table. “And, uh.” She floundered, only briefly but enough for Dean to notice, over Cas.

Dean smirked and helpfully provided, “The proper form of address is _Your Shining Glory_.”

Abandoning all sense of decorum, Charlie snickered. “You’re not serious.” When no one else laughed, she stopped and looked at them. She paled, raising a hand to cover her mouth. “Oh my Goddesses, you are serious.”

Dean, Jo, and Benny all had various forms of mild horror on their faces. It wasn’t like they’d planned it out, but they all had similarly twisted senses of humor and a knack for instantly picking up on and playing along with whatever prank might be going on.

Cas, though, had no reason to know what was going on or why they were acting that way. By rights he should have been confused, or kindly telling Charlie he didn’t mind—because Dean was sure he didn’t. Instead, he had the grumpiest look of offense on his face that Dean had ever seen and Dean’s heart dropped to his feet. He’d been so positive Cas would get along with his friends that he’d moved too fast, pushed him into a setting he was uncomfortable with and now both Cas and Charlie would be mad at him.

“I’m so sorry, Your Shining Glory,” Charlie whispered from behind her trembling fingers.

Cas just stared at her, scowl unmoving and so much like Raphael’s that Dean finally saw the family resemblance, as the silence stretched on. Jo and Benny shifted uncomfortably.

Cas’s frown twitched.

“I can’t,” he admitted as his haughty facade fell away to a helpless smile. He turned to Dean, half amused and half apologetic. “I’m sorry, I tried not to ruin your fun, but I can’t stand it anymore.”

To Charlie, whose momentary gape was turning into a full, open-mouthed grin, he added, “I apologize if I caused you distress. I’ll be your prince soon, I don’t expect to be treated any differently. So please, just call me Prince James or Your Highness. Or...” He snuck a glance back at Dean, who was far too busy processing to respond, and said, “Or however you would address my intended. The polite versions, if you’d be so kind.”

Cas had a sense of humor. Dean hadn’t seen it before that morning, but he had a wry, sharp wit and he wasn’t afraid to use it and Dean was far too spellbound to react to anything that was being said around him. Because that, right there, that was the moment he started falling for his prince.

The rest of the day was fantastic but hazy. Charlie took them around the markets and meeting places and docks and all Dean could focus on were the feelings blossoming in his chest every time he looked over at the man who’d been thrown at him more or less at random. Before he knew it the day was over, and the next, and it was time for them to be wed.

He hoped their newfound friendship would survive.

He hoped his newfound feelings would be returned.

He hoped they’d get the happily ever after he’d always wanted but never put a face to before.


	11. In Which Two Princes Are Wed

The wedding wasn’t as farcical and contrived as Castiel had feared it would be. He’d read enough about American weddings, and particularly royal American weddings, to know that they weren’t above ostentatious displays of good cheer.

The current King and Queen’s wedding, back when one was a prince and the other a knight, had been considered an understated affair with over a thousand guests, a dinner including four courses of dessert alone, and three days of mostly drunken jubilation across the kingdom that followed. Dean’s royal grandparents had apparently sent each of their three thousand guests away with a royal blue rose, enchanted for longevity but gilded along the edge of the petals by hand.

Celestine’s marriage rites, in contrast, focused more on the ceremony than the celebration. Everything was symbolism: layers of ornate white and blue robes that were removed in stages to represent the baring of two souls to one another, choreographed steps bringing the two participants from their separate ancestral lines into a new family together, words passed down from generation to generation about loyalty and faith and profound bonds—not a lot about love, traditionally.

Additionally, there were the doves.

The release of the doves was one of the most poetic and beautiful parts of a Celestine wedding. Once the final blessings had been spoken, the newlyweds would loose two flower-crowned doves, an offering of life to the heavens, their fates entrusted to a higher power.

Castiel still didn’t understand Michael’s motives for requiring _a thousand_ doves instead. Maybe he’d just been trying to scale appropriately to Americana’s customs, maybe he’d been throwing his weight around where he could to make a point, or maybe he’d just thought it would be funny. But as he stood with his new husband at the center of the ritual pavilion, Castiel suspected Hannah had been right after all: Michael was making a statement about Castiel’s place in Americana, and it was a striking statement indeed.

The doves blocked the onlookers off as they took flight, a wall of flapping wings and soft coos that would soon start to break apart as the birds flew higher and further away. In the gaps between them, the couple would be revealed. He and Dean, side by side, a matched and even pair. They’d both lost most of the ceremonial robes, left with thin white tunics and long pants that were much more tolerable in the American heat than they would have been in Celestine’s climate. They would keep those on, gauzy and trimmed with blue, until they were alone in their bedchamber and the last of the unveiling could be done in privacy.

There was ritual to go along with that, too. A final binding, touched with magic and intimate, so intimate that just the thought sent shivers up Castiel’s spine. Nerves, yes, but anticipation too. Looking over at Dean, strong and confident, handsome and kind, he could think of no one else with whom he’d rather share that special part of his soul.

That would come later. Castiel didn’t want to lose sight of this moment by focusing on the future just yet.

He reached out and took Dean’s hand. It wasn’t part of the script, as Dean must have known—he’d actually been warned against the casual shows of affection that were commonplace in American ceremonies—but his surprise instantly blossomed into a warm smile as he squeezed back.

The last of the doves vanished into the sky and the two princes were left alone on the dais, united as one in front of the crowd.

After that, things were a bit of a blur. Their role was done for the moment, but they had to stand there as the Herald of Americana positioned himself in front of the pavilion and read Castiel into the line of succession. It was a long recitation, full of explanations of the most fundamental laws and traditions of the kingdom, and Castiel paid it absolutely no heed. All his attention was focused on the joining of his hand with Dean’s, the warmth that seemed to spread from Dean’s palm to his, all the way up his arm and through his chest. They stood like that, neither loosening their twined fingers, Castiel didn’t know for how long.

Then Dean was tugging gently, grinning at him, pulling him in to whisper, “That’s our cue.”

Blinking and glancing around for the first time since the doves had flown, Castiel realized it was true. The herald was gone and the courtyard was silent, all eyes intent on them. It was time for them to retire from the public part of the ceremony and complete their vows in private. Following the Celestine tradition, the celebratory feast would be held the following night.

Castiel by then knew his way around the American palace. He knew how to get from the courtyard to the grand stairs, and from there to the guest chambers provided to him or even Dean’s bedroom. Still, he let Dean guide him through the corridors in a daze, heart picking up speed with every step they took across the deserted stone floors. The journey seemed to take an eternity, but at the same time it was only a blink of the eye, a flutter of the heartbeat before they were behind the closed doors of Dean’s room.

Turning to face Castiel, Dean squeezed his hand again. “Are you okay?” he asked, voice soft and warm like he was soothing a spooked mare.

“Yes.” Castiel’s voice came out thready and weak, and it made him sound uncertain when really he was just overwhelmed. “Yes,” he repeated more strongly.

Then, because Dean looked so worried about him and this was a time for baring souls, he would soon be bared to Dean, and Dean to him—and that thought sent another flush of heat through him—he added, “I’m very happy, Dean. It’s just all... very much.”

“It was quite a show,” Dean agreed, stroking his thumb over the back of Castiel’s hand. “But it’s just us now. Are you ready, or do you need a minute?”

Castiel took a deep breath and freed his hand from Dean’s; Dean let him go without protest. It wasn’t that the rest of the wedding had been fake or unimportant, but this—this was final, the part he couldn’t take back once it was done. Even if everything went wrong and he was sent back to Celestine in disgrace, if the treaty failed and there was war, he’d always be marked by Dean in this way. It was a life-changing moment.

He turned back to Dean, whose face was reflecting the same mix of nervousness and hope that Castiel himself was feeling. Castiel stepped toward him and, like the doves, gave his fate away to the heavens.

Dean’s skin was warm under his hands as Castiel stretched them tentatively beneath the sides of the tunic, and Castiel could feel Dean’s breath catch at the contact. Their eyes locked as Dean lifted his arms in invitation, and Castiel took it, sliding the shirt up and up, the shiver of Dean’s skin as he dragged his fingers along it forming sympathetic goosebumps on his own arms.

Slowly, slowly, he revealed the soft slope of Dean’s stomach, the harder muscles of his chest with dusky nipples, already tight and pebbled when the hem of the tunic brushed across them. The noise Dean made at that was somewhere between a moan and a whimper, and Castiel warmed deep in his chest. And lower, too; his hips twitched in response as heated blood started to flow.

Then Dean’s shirt was gone, up over his head and off his arms, cast aside into some far corner of the room, and he reached for Castiel’s. He didn’t move any faster than Castiel had, but there was an easy confidence to the way he bared Castiel’s torso under his hands.

Of course there was. Dean had undoubtedly done this before, with men and women much more appealing than Castiel was. Castiel was no painted noblewoman or strong and fit knight, so he was unprepared for the look of reverence with which Dean took in his revealed flesh.

Even more unexpectedly, Dean’s hand trembled slightly, flinching back before pressing firmly, when he laid it in the space over Castiel’s heart. His palm caught against Castiel’s nipple, rough with swordsman’s calluses but so warm and gentle, and it sent a spark of hot lust through him, so sudden and strong that he was caught off-guard.

Castiel had never really _wanted_ before. He’d lived a simple life, for a prince, solitary but for when he’d been surrounded by family. He’d never considered Joshua or Inias in that light; Joshua was too old, and Inias too young, and both of them in positions too vulnerable to turn down royalty even if he had wanted to make an advance.

The rest of the servants, male or female, were even further out of the question. They wouldn’t meet his eyes or let him engage them in conversation or call him anything other than _Glory_. And the nobility, which he interacted with as little as possible, was too ripe for scandal to take a casual bed partner.

But now, Castiel felt an aching hunger that started in the pit of his stomach and spread through his body, racing in tingles up his spine and pooling blood and desire in his groin.

“Okay,” Dean said. Their eyes had lost each other during the process, and Dean’s gaze was fixated on the spot where their skin touched. If they dropped any lower, he’d be able to see Castiel’s want, reaching towards him through the thin fabric of the pants they both still wore. Instead, Dean raised his head to look Castiel in the eye again, offer him a reassuring and genuine smile.

His hand stroked over Castiel’s flesh, brushing his shoulder and trailing down his arm to take his hand again, and his skin burned hot with Dean’s touch, even in the wake after it had passed. Without letting go this time, Castiel turned to follow Dean’s lead to the bed in one corner. Curtains of blue and white draped around it, hung for tonight and to be taken down tomorrow after their vows were consummated.

It was large, enough to hold three or four grown men comfortably, and the thought that maybe it had in the past sent a rush of mixed emotions through Castiel: jealousy of all those who’d touched Dean before, curiosity about what they might have done and how it would have felt to be one of them, insecurity and worry that Dean would find him inadequate, and another flash of heat at the thought of a night in their future, if he could prove himself, if he could satisfy Dean enough to be trusted with the prince’s fantasies, when maybe they could repeat the experience and invite another to their bed.

Because it would be, from this night on, their bed. The King and Queen had offered them a larger set of rooms in another wing of the palace, but Dean had wanted to stay. He hadn’t said so, had told Castiel that the decision was his, but even in the few short weeks of their acquaintance Castiel had known Dean well enough to see the guarded look in his eyes. Dean’s room was special to him, the place he’d grown up and always felt safe, and Castiel would never want to take that from him.

So when he sat on the edge of the bed, as Dean gently guided him to, his chest threatened to burst with a warmth that had nothing to do with the desire simmering under his skin. Here he was, in Dean’s dearest sanctuary, being welcomed like he belonged. Like he’d always belonged.

Then Dean reached for the supplies laid out on the lacquered tree stump that served as his bedside table, and Castiel could think of nothing but what would come next, the consummation of their vows, the unbreakable bond they were about to give themselves over to.

Taking a deep breath, Dean dipped his brush into the small bowl of shimmering blue paint and brought the wet bristles to Castiel’s chest. The first brushstroke across the skin above his fluttering heart made the muscle beneath twitch, but by the next he was still and breathless, too enraptured by the concentration on Dean’s face to need something as minor and important as air.

The brush flowed in small, controlled movements like a caress, leaving a path of glimmering pigment everywhere it passed over. Dean had to stop twice to re-ink it, but he was cautious each time to resume exactly where he’d left out, not leaving a single smudge or uneven line.

When he finished, Dean carefully set the bowl back on the table, the brush laid across it, and stared at his handiwork. Castiel knew he should look, too, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop watching Dean’s face, flushed and mouth slightly open to let his tongue dart out across his lips every time he blinked.

Castiel didn’t know how long they stayed there, him staring at Dean as Dean stared at the paint that was cool but quickly drying on his skin, but eventually Dean cleared his throat and shut his mouth, eyes darting up to Castiel’s.

“Is that, uh,”—Dean had to cough again—“is that good?”

Castiel finally looked down and his breath caught at the sight. Dean had initially struggled with Enochian, the language of Celestine magic. The letters were esoteric, strange and unlike those used for common writing in both their kingdoms. Dean had more than once despaired of ever getting right even the few he needed to know for this, and Castiel wouldn’t have cared if they’d ended up malformed and ugly.

But they weren’t.

The letters painted above his heart were perfect. Perfectly shaped, perfectly even, and perfectly clear in claiming him as Dean’s.

“It’s perfect,” he whispered. Speaking any louder felt like sacrilege.

They both stared at Dean’s name written on Castiel’s skin for a few moments longer, but then it was time for Castiel to do his part. He stood and picked up the bowl of paint with hands that still trembled, but he forced them to calm as he lifted the brush to Dean’s chest.

It felt wrong, a jarringly discordant note in the symphony of this ceremony, to inscribe _James_ over Dean’s heart. But there were rules and traditions, and even if he’d never felt less like James and more like Castiel, he couldn’t break from what needed to be done. The magic required his name, so that’s what he gave it.

But before the glittering ink could even dry, Dean frowned down at it and smeared it away. Castiel’s heart stopped with a wrenching ache.

Dean didn’t want him after all. Things had been going well, but at this final moment it must have hit him that there was no turning back. He had doubts. He—

He shook Castiel by the shoulder as he caressed his cheek with the other hand. “No, I didn’t mean—Cas, I’m sorry, I should have asked first. Let me explain?”

Dean wiped away a tear Castiel hadn’t realized was falling, so very gentle. Heart beating wildly now, too painful for him to draw breath, Castiel nodded.

“I should have asked,” Dean said again. “If that’s what you want, that’s fine. But you’re not James to me. You were never yourself when you were James. You’re Cas; Castiel. You always will be. I kind of thought... I hoped maybe you’d want that. For everyone?”

If Castiel had had any doubts—he hadn’t—that would have put them to rest. He hadn’t even voiced his concerns, but Dean understood and shared them. So he set to work again, this time writing _his_ name. He flowed through the _C_ and the _a_ and the _s_. And then he stopped. He was writing his name, so he stopped. 

Dean looked at down at the _Cas_ , then looked up at Cas with the most blinding smile yet. “Come ‘ere, Cas,” he murmured.

The time had come for the final step of the ritual: a kiss. It would activate the magic, tattooing their names on each other’s skin, binding their souls for eternity. It would be their first kiss—was supposed to be their first kiss, for the magic to work. It would also be Cas’s first kiss with anyone.

If the stories were true, Dean had kissed so many people. Cas couldn’t possibly compare, but he hoped not to be disappointing. He hesitated, nearly losing his nerve, but Dean reached out to cradle the back of Cas’s head in his warm hand and everything from there was so easy Cas didn’t think he’d be able to ruin it if he tried.

Dean’s lips were warm and soft, gentle against his own as the magic flared to life between them. The spell tugged at something at Cas’s very core, deep in his chest, but the sensation was nothing compared to Dean’s mouth swallowing his breath, coaxing out a surprised moan when he teased his tongue past Cas’s lips.

The blue light faded, leaving a tingle on his skin that echoed the one building in his lips.

“Oh.” Cas pulled back, dazed, and Dean let him go. Raising a shaking hand to Dean’s lips, he traced the soft lower one with a light finger. “I see why people enjoy that so much.”

Dean’s mouth dropped open and Cas’s fingertip slipped just inside, the pad barely brushing at the wet inner lip before he pulled back with a blush. It intensified as Dean continued to gape at him.

“Why people—Cas, have you—was that your first kiss?”

Though he worried again about disappointing Dean, Cas had to admit, “Yes. I’ve never—there never was anyone. I don’t really know how it’s supposed to go. I’m sorry.”


	12. In Which Two Princes Shag

It took Dean a long time to stop staring and act on that statement. He felt bad about it, Cas looked more and more miserable with every passing moment, but that knowledge—it just broke him a little. Standing before him was a gorgeous, sweet, good man, and no one had ever so much as touched Cas with intent before.

Dean himself had had many lovers since coming of age. Men and women (sometimes men _and_ women), nobles and knights and commoners. People with whom he’d had a mutual interest in pleasure, regardless of status. He enjoyed losing himself in learning their bodies, finding the parts he could touch and lick and suck to make them moan. Teasing a nipple with his tongue to draw out an impatient whine, or thrusting ruthlessly until his partner was gasping, breathless—his tastes were broad but at the same time specific.

What he liked most about sex, more than the warmth of another body or the euphoria of getting off, was earning his lovers’ reactions as he worked them over. He wanted to teach them new things about their bodies and then take full advantage of the newfound weaknesses.

So finding out that Cas (his husband, _Gods_ , that would never stop being amazing) was virginal, inexperienced and unfamiliar with how amazing someone else could make him feel; knowing that he’d be the one to take Cas apart for the first time, to show him how to take Dean apart—it overwhelmed him in the best possible way.

Cas dipped closer and closer to dejection by the second; Dean had to act. He slipped his hand back into Cas’s hair, deeper this time, and tugged. Not hard, just enough to tip Cas’s head back and make him look Dean in the eye again.

“No apologies, Cas. There’s nothing wrong with that. Honestly, I find it almost absurdly appealing.”

“Really?”

The hope widening Cas’s eyes and parting his lips was so uncertain that Dean had to dip down and claim another kiss, trying to soothe away Cas’s worries with the warm, wet caress of lips and tongue. As Cas relaxed into it, Dean dared to press further, ravaging Cas’s mouth more aggressively. Cas seemed to be into it, opening to Dean and even returning the exploratory kisses, tentatively at first and then more confidently.

When Dean nipped gently at his lower lip, he jerked in surprise and stilled. Though he didn’t pull back, Dean did. He kept hold of Cas’s head, distancing himself just enough to look at his husband’s face. Cas’s lips, usually so pale and chapped, were red and shiny, his expression dazed.

“Too much?” Dean asked him softly. “Some people like that—I like it, having it done like that to me—but it’s fine if you don’t.”

Pupils blown wide and dark, Cas demanded, “Do it again.”

His voice was low and rough and, really, Dean wasn’t about to argue with an order like that. He worked up to it, though, starting out by licking his way inside Cas’s mouth again. The next time Dean scraped his teeth over the plush pillow of Cas’s lip, Cas groaned and threw himself into the kiss with renewed fervour. Then he bit back, sinking his own teeth into Dean’s bottom lip a little too hard (perfectly, just how he liked it) and Dean couldn’t ignore the way their erections pressed against each other through the thin ceremonial pants any longer.

“Cas,” he gasped, breaking away with a great feat of will, “can we—do you want to...”

“Yes.” Cas’s hips hitched into his, making his dick twitch wantonly. “Anything. _Everything_.”

“Gods. Come—come on, here, on the bed.”

Dean guided Cas back to the bed, sitting them both at the edge of the mattress and cupping his cheek. “Everything,” he promised. He could barely speak through the emotion building in his chest, a contradictory jumble of feeling: the lightness of joy and the heaviness of eternity, warm affection and hot lust, prickling worry that he’d mess something up but also solid, reverberating certainty that he was going to make this amazing for Cas.

Leaning into Dean’s touch, Cas reached out for him and drew him forward for another kiss. Though gentler, there was nothing chaste about the way Cas’s tongue delved into his mouth and both of them were panting again by the time they separated.

“What do you want me to do?”

Tempting as it was to repeat _everything_ , Dean sat back and raked his eyes over his husband.

His beautiful, virginal husband.

Dean had never been harder in his life, but he could wait; this was about Cas. He slipped off the bed until he knelt before Cas’s knees, then slowly ran his hands up Cas’s thighs. Breath catching and dick moving visibly beneath the white cloth of his pants, Cas watched as Dean brought his fingers to the soft fabric tie of Cas’s belt.

Dean hesitated for barely a moment, poised on the edge of second guessing, but then Cas’s hands were there too, helping him undo the knot and slide the pants down; off. Flushed even darker than his chest and already leaking, Cas’s erection bobbed free to stand proudly against his stomach. Dean’s mouth went dry.

The girth of it, a bit thicker and straighter than Dean’s, gave him all sorts of fantastic ideas. But the head that peeked out of the foreskin was red, smooth, and shiny, and he just had to press a kiss to the tip. It jumped against his lips. Cas’s sharp intake of breath spurred him on and he slid his mouth down, taking Cas all the way in without warning or preamble. He didn’t even mind the way Cas bucked up into him; he could take it, especially since it got him that groaned curse erupting from Cas’s mouth.

Dean loved Cas’s responsiveness. Even as Cas tried to rasp out an apology, Dean swallowed and sucked around him and turned it into a gasp. Licking his way back up, he wrapped a loose hand around Cas’s length and stroked him slowly as he swirled his tongue around the slit. Every twitch and soft noise burned a line of desire through Dean’s chest into his cock and he was sorely tempted to keep going, to work Cas to completion and drink him down.

But that would have to wait. Not too long, he hoped, because the idea appealed to him almost irresistibly, but he knew he’d get his chance. More than once, judging by Cas’s enthusiastic reaction. He had other plans for the consummation of their first union.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take Cas right to the edge, though. It was Cas’s first time with someone’s mouth on him and Dean set about making it spectacular.

When Cas’s thighs trembled around him (which didn’t take long, but Dean wouldn’t judge; he hadn’t lasted long his first time, either), he pulled off and sat back on his heels. One hand still ghosted along Cas’s cock, gently easing him down. The other, he lifted to rub at Cas’s hip as he waited for Cas to recover.

Cas’s head had fallen back, eyes closed and lip firmly wedged between his teeth, as he tried to support himself on shaking arms. Slowly he lifted it, eyes blinking open to find Dean’s gaze on him.

“Hey,” Dean said. His throat felt a little rough; he actually liked the way it made his voice low and scratchy. “So you liked that?” It wasn’t really a question, because Dean couldn’t stop himself from smirking cockily. He knew he was good, just like he knew that Cas looked absolutely wrecked.

Confirming the awe-inspiring skill of Dean’s cocksucking, Cas half growled, half sobbed his name like a desperate gasp for breath. Dean surged up to kiss him, irresistibly tempted to taste his name from Cas’s lips when it sounded like _that_. Unfortunately, Cas bent double with the same apparent purpose in mind at just the same time, and their foreheads smacked together painfully.

Dean rocked backwards, momentarily stunned, but then he and Cas reached for each other and this time they timed it perfectly, fitted together like they were meant to spend the rest of their lives sharing each other’s breaths. Cas thrust into the air as they kissed, his hips jerking with slight, helpless movements as his dick sought to regain any sort of satisfaction.

But when his hands dropped from Dean’s face, it wasn’t to relieve his own desire. He groped urgently at Dean’s pants, getting the belt untied in seconds and tugging them down as far as he could manage. It was only partway down Dean’s thighs, given how Dean leaned over him with one knee on the mattress. Still, that was enough for the fabric to drag over the head of his cock as it sprung free. The contact made him groan; he was so close already, just from what he’d done for Cas.

Cas stopped kissing Dean so he could drag his gaze down Dean’s body. “Oh,” he whispered, staring unabashedly at the erection curving up towards Dean’s stomach. “Can I touch you? I—Dean, I want to make you feel like this.”

Dean stood long enough to to slip his pants all the way off and retrieve the last unused item from the side table: a small bottle of slick oil. “We can do anything you want,” he told Cas as he settled on the bed again, “but I was thinking maybe you’d like to fuck me.”

He hoped Cas would like that; Dean definitely would. Just picturing Cas’s wide, astonished eyes as he pushed into Dean—into anyone—for the first time was enough to make a thick bead form at the tip of Dean’s cock.

He wanted to fuck Cas too, absolutely he did, but it would probably take more patience and stamina than either of them had left to make that an enjoyable experience right now. And by the Gods, when he got the chance, he would take his time stretching Cas out, opening him slowly and gently and probably getting him off a time or two in the process before Dean’s dick even got involved in the process.

Cas hadn’t said anything, and Dean started to worry. “We don’t have to, if there’s—”

“Show me,” Cas demanded and begged at the same time, breathlessly pulling his eyes back to Dean’s. “I want to, yes, Gods, I want to. But I don’t know how—I don’t want to hurt you. Will you show me?”

So Dean did, laying back across the bed and working himself open with slicked fingers while Cas devoured the sight. He tried to make quick work of it, to avoid stimulating himself any further, but after he’d slid his second finger in and stretched himself around both of them, Cas breathed, “Can I—?” and then there was Cas’s finger pushing into him.

They both gasped when Cas’s explorations found Dean’s prostate. As soon as he recovered his breath, Dean said, “Enough. Now, Cas, please. I won’t last much longer, please come here.”

Cas crawled over Dean, his knees between Dean’s thighs and his arms bracing him up to either side of Dean’s chest. Wrapping one leg up around Cas’s back, Dean reached between them; he couldn’t resist getting his hand on Cas one more time before lining up the head of Cas’s cock with his hole and guiding him in.

The slow slide of Cas into him was almost as wonderful a feeling as the look on Cas’s face, which was even better than Dean had imagined it. He could tell Cas was trying to hold back from rutting into him mindlessly, but he didn’t need him to; he just needed—“Now you can touch me,” he advised as Cas dragged over his sweet spot again. “Just however you usually touch yourself—don’t deny it, you can’t possibly be that pure.”

“I have. I do,” Cas admitted as he levered himself onto one arm so the other could move. His hand wrapped around Dean and started to move, mostly focused around the first couple of inches. He rubbed circles over the head with his palm and jerked short strokes with the circle of his fingers. His thumb toyed with the ridge of the crown and the edges of the slit.

It wasn’t quite Dean’s usual self-love routine, but that made it even better. He was keenly aware it was Cas’s hand on him as Cas’s dick thrust into him. He’d had his fair share of lovers, many of them experienced and fantastic in bed. This was different. Better, so much better in a way that had nothing to do with Cas being a virgin or a prince or the most attractive man Dean had ever seen. They had a connection, solidified by the magic of their marriage but preceding it, something that was just them; his heart swelled with it.

Cas choked out his name again and Dean grabbed a handful of his hair, pulled him down for a fierce kiss that sent Cas driving into him uncontrollably, jerking his fist over Dean’s cock fast and hard. “Yes,” he groaned into Cas’s ear. “Just like that, Gods, yes.”

He made it a few more moments before the sparks dancing in his blood turned into an inferno. His whole body clenched as orgasm burned through him, and the only thing keeping him aware in the moment was the need to watch Cas following him down, the stunned, broken, wondrous look on his husband’s face that very nearly broke Dean’s heart with happiness.

Cas shook for a long time after, his face pressed to Dean’s chest and his hands tight on Dean’s arms. Dean stroked his neck and kissed his hair and whispered endearments. And gloried just a bit in his sense of accomplishment.

He’d get up to get a rag and clean them off eventually, but it was nothing that couldn’t wait.


	13. In Which There Is Violence And a Thickening of Plots

Cas fell into sleep easily, exhausted by the long day and the intensity of his joining with Dean. His slumber was restful and dreamless, but not long, for he wasn’t accustomed to sharing his bed. He woke to darkness in the windows and the long candle on the desk, meant to last throughout the night, burned down only a few notches.

Dean shifted beside him, rolling to one side in slumber; that must have been what had disturbed him. He settled his head back against the exceptionally soft pillow and closed his eyes, trying to sink into sleep once more. But every time Dean moved, twitched a leg or breathed out a soft snore, he startled to alertness again.

It made for a tense, restless night. He didn’t want to leave the bed; he enjoyed the idea of sharing it with Dean, but he was nevertheless unable to relax and sleep for any significant length of time. So between uneasy dozing, he watched Dean in the dim candlelight. His husband slept peacefully, untroubled, and Cas could at least take vicarious pleasure in that.

When Dean turned onto his back, Cas sat up—carefully, so as not to disturb Dean’s rest—so that he could see the three letters of Dean’s magical tattoo. They faded in and out of visibility, just at the edge of the flame’s reach, and each time the flicker of flame revealed them Cas’s heartbeat stuttered with contentment. It was worth the sleeplessness.

Cas was no less exhausted, however, so when Dean again curled onto his side and remained unmoving and quiet for a notch of the candle, Cas tried once more to sleep. He’d thought Dean’s stillness would allow him rest at last; he’d been wrong. He woke before long, and was at first unable to determine what had disturbed him this time.

Dean was turned away from him and no longer restless in slumber, not snoring or murmuring or even breathing overly loudly. In fact, Cas was unable to hear him breathing at all—or see his chest rise and fall, with Dean’s back to him. Even as he registered the fear as irrational, he threw himself upright and leaned over Dean’s prone form, watching until he saw ribs expanding and contracting in the slow rhythm of sleep.

Thus began a new pattern of disruption to Cas’s attempts at rest: when he wasn’t bothered by Dean’s movements, he became uneasy at the lack of them. It couldn’t be normal to be so sensitive to his partner’s state. Dean slept perfectly fine—though he also assuredly had more experience than Cas with sharing a bed.

Late into the night, after hours of fitful, interrupted sleep, Cas was ready to call the entire endeavor a loss. He’d be exhausted for the celebrations in the coming day, but maybe it would at least help him sleep through the next night. Not the most auspicious start to his marriage or his time in Americana, but not the worst either. Despite his tiredness, he was happier than he’d ever imagined he could be.

Dean rolled over again, towards Cas this time. He flung an arm over Cas’s stomach and a knee over his thighs, which Cas assumed was an unconscious act until Dean pushed his face against the crook of Cas’s neck and murmured, “Sleep.”

With Dean’s warmth blanketed over him and Dean’s breaths puffing steadily against his chest, he found that he finally could.

When Cas woke again, light filtered through the curtains. He’d slept far longer than the intermittent, interrupted dozes of the night and felt all the more refreshed for it. He also felt foolish, in the light of day, for his nocturnal worries. Dean had survived more than twenty years of sleeping through the night without significant incident; Cas lying beside him, awake or not, wasn’t likely to change that. He just had to acclimate to having a bedmate.

At the moment, though, he had none. His husband, who had slept so peacefully beside him, was gone. Having woken at every turn and snore and twitch of Dean’s throughout the night, Cas had nevertheless managed to sleep through his departure; he blamed it on his exhaustion and tried to push back his chagrin.

A scrap of parchment lay folded on Dean’s pillow in his stead, a short note to inform Cas he’d gone down to the kitchen to arrange a private breakfast for them. I’m not ready to share you with the rest of the world yet, it read, and I think you could use the sleep.

Dean had signed his name at the bottom, which would have seemed unnecessary—there was no one else to have left it, after all—except that he’d signed in Enochian. The letters matched those etched eternally above Cas’s heart and he could almost swear he felt the ink warm under his skin as his eyes lingered on the page.

Dean’s thoughtfulness didn’t come as a surprise; not after they’d properly introduced themselves and he’d gotten to know the prince properly, and especially not after Dean had been so tender with him the night before. But it did send him over to the mirror to look at the tattoo, tracing his finger over the backwards blue lines of Dean’s name in the reflection.

The ceremony had been so surreal, so overwhelming at the time that he hadn’t allowed the gravity of it to sink in. Now, alone with his own thoughts, he let himself consider not just his permanent bond to Dean, but all it implied.

He was Crown Prince of Americana, heir to the throne not just as Dean’s spouse, but on his own. If Dean, heavens forbid, died before his coronation, Cas would still become king. It seemed so peculiar to him—surely that right should be Sam’s—but he was also from a kingdom where a firstborn princess had no right to inherit, so perhaps he was in no position to judge lines of succession.

Or, he had been from that kingdom. He was American now. Celestine would always be a part of him, but he couldn’t think of himself as a foreigner any longer.

And as heir to the American throne, he probably ought to get dressed. There was every chance that Dean would return from his campaign for breakfast with help, a cook or a servant to carry some of the food, and it wouldn’t do to be caught with his genitals exposed. Americana might not be quite as “uptight,” as Dean put it, as Celestine about a great many things, but royal nudity was still more or less out of bounds.

His wedding pants were still on the floor by the bed, but those wouldn’t be an appropriate choice of attire. Not only would he still be in need of a top, but the thin white fabric would do very little to disguise the reaction he was quite certain he’d have on seeing Dean again. Just the memory of Dean’s mouth on his, Dean’s hands on him— _heavens_ —Dean’s mouth and body around him; it was enough to heat his blood. Having his husband back within arms’ reach was bound to affect him even more strongly.

He would also be expected to dress in the American style, no longer wrapping himself in layers of ornate Celestine robes. The royal tailor had measured him shortly after his arrival, but he didn’t know if any of the clothes were finished yet. If they were, they might have been arranged in one of the wardrobes against the wall, since this was now his room as well. No harm in checking.

The first wardrobe held some of Dean’s clothing. Cas recognized several of the shirts and jackets at once, having previously seen them on the prince and admired the way they showed off his chest and arms. Others were unfamiliar, but upon pulling out a dark blue tunic that looked newly made, he found it slightly too long and broad for him. Also Dean’s.

He moved to the second wardrobe. On closer inspection, though it matched the style of the first, they were not an exact pair. The grain of the wood was lighter than the first, and the scrollwork whittled by a steadier hand. The same craftsman, though; the work was too consistent to be even a skilled impersonator. The two pieces had been made years apart, after the artist improved their techniques. Either Dean had had reason to expand his capacity for storing clothing, or this had been commissioned specifically for Cas.

Opening the doors with reverence, for it truly was a fine piece of furniture, Cas found a wide variety of American and Celestine outfits. It had been made for him after all, and filled with custom made clothes from both cultures; there were certainly more robes and overcoats then he’d left home with.

Overcome by the gesture, Cas took a moment to react to the knocking at the chamber door. By the time he did, it was already coming again, more urgently; a strong fist pounding against the heavy wood. And there he was, still without pants. As he pulled a pair of trousers from the selection at random, a man called from outside, “Your Highness! Forgive the intrusion but I carry an urgent message from your husband. Time is of the essence!”

Panic seized Cas’s heart, ice spreading across his ribs where before his marriage tattoo had brought warmth. As soon as the pants had been dragged over his hips he hurried for the door, disregarding the need for a shirt entirely. Modesty had no place in his mind if Dean needed him.

A palace knight stood outside the door, hand poised to bang again as Cas yanked it open. “Is Dean all right?” he demanded.

“Please, Your Highness, I’ve been instructed that this is a matter requiring extreme discretion. May I enter so that I may pass along the information privately?”

In a few moments, Cas would come to curse his stupidly trusting innocence. Fighting for his life—and losing—he would look back and see what a fool he’d been. But at the time, he had little enough experience with treachery that he didn’t think twice before agreeing readily and stepping back to let the knight in. He even turned his back, thinking to finish dressing as he heard the news. Only after, when he heard the bolt of the lock thudding home and the metallic slide of a sword drawing free, did he realize he’d let himself be trapped.

Though Cas was no soldier, Dean was; he had swords and daggers hung about the room. They seemed to be mostly decorative, but Cas doubted Dean would allow a useless weapon in his sight. He ran for the nearest, barely managing to pull it down in time to clumsily block a blow that might easily have severed his head from his neck.

Cas’s opponent outmatched him easily. He kept himself alive through the first moments of the assault by dodging and blocking as best he could, but even his most tremendous efforts left him sliced at the edges—a gash along one arm, a deep biting stab to his thigh—and he was tiring rapidly. The knight had training and strength that Cas lacked, and every blow he managed to parry left his muscles screaming. Each time he tried to maneuver himself into a better position, he ran into a chair or a wall, or knocked something over.

“Cas?” It was Dean, returned and rattling the inexplicably locked door. When Cas didn’t—couldn’t—answer, he got louder with worry. “Cas!”

Straining to force his voice out of his heaving chest and ducking another nearly fatal swing, Cas managed to cry, “Dean, help me!"

He could hear Dean yelling for him, banging the door on its hinges as he threw himself against it over and over. On the third or fourth try, the wood splintered and gave way, but that moment of distraction was enough. The knight’s sword ripped into Cas’s chest, sinking under his ribs and driving upwards to the hilt. His world erupted into blinding light and vicious pain, then there was nothing.


	14. In Which One Prince Dies and Another Prince Mourns

The door finally, _finally_ cracked and shattered under Dean’s weight and he threw himself into the room just in time to see an assassin in a knight’s uniform run his newly wedded husband through.

“Cas!” he screamed, diving for the man, though he knew, deep down, that he was too late. He’d seen men die before, had served and led in skirmishes with Malevale along the southern border. Had killed. Cas’s murderer clearly had, too.

One step towards them and the tip of the sword pierced out of Cas’s body, dripping blood from high in his back. At seeing the position, the angle of it, Dean felt a piercing pain through his own chest. The sword had gone straight through Cas’s heart. As if that weren’t enough—because Cas might have kept breathing for a few minutes, a horrible agonized rattle that Dean never wanted to hear again, particularly from the man he loved, but it would have been time enough to say goodbye.

As if stabbing Cas through the heart weren’t terrible enough, the assassin immediately wrenched the blade in a vicious twist to compound the damage and open the wound. That move, also, Dean had seen before. It took strength and cruelty, and was a favorite of Malevale’s soldiers.

Two steps and Cas's knees should have been giving way, sending him falling to the floor just like the cascade of blood gushing from his chest. The crimson stained his bare torso, spilled down his stomach and splattered over the blue tattoo of Dean’s name, the mark of their bond.

Despite how it should have been impossible for him to stay up, Cas didn’t collapse. He didn’t even sag further onto the sword, not that there was any blade left for him to fall on, with the hilt shoved right up against his skin.

On the third step Dean faltered, because instead of blood, light began pouring out of Cas. Brilliant white with a hint of blue, it flared brighter than any fire Dean had ever seen, brighter than the sun itself, but he didn’t dare look away even as it threatened to blind him.

The light spilled first from the gaping hole in Cas’s chest, tendrils that wrapped around the hilt of the sword still impaled through him and made the assassin yell in surprise and fall back. Soon, the entire weapon was overtaken, no longer visible beneath the glare of whatever bright magic had been called forth out of Cas.

Then another flare shot out of Cas’s back, where the sword’s tip had pushed through. Like lightning, it arced and split, branching into two arms that grew and filled as the glow spread over them, forming a pair of—

Wings.

Cas had wings. Dazzling, illuminating, breath-taking, outstretched _wings_.

Staring at them for too long sent spots of black and yellow bubbling up across Dean’s vision, but he was too awestruck to look away until they blazed up suddenly, so fiercely he had to shut his eyes against the pain.

When he could no longer see the light straining to pierce through his eyelids, Dean chanced a glance at Cas again. He stood where he’d been moments before, but the glowing tendrils and wings were gone. Instead, he was just himself, Cas, alive and whole, not a drop of blood to be seen.

The would-be assassin, who’d come so close to success that Dean suspected he’d have nightmares for the rest of his life—images of Cas with a sword through his heart, blood spilling onto the floor, face slack with pain—lay unmoving on the ground. His sword, the one he’d used to try and kill Dean’s husband, was nowhere to be seen, so Dean instead picked up his own sword from where it had fallen at Cas’s feet.

The man was clearly dead. He wasn’t twitching. He wasn’t breathing. He didn’t have much of a face left, his eyes having been burned from their sockets at some point (Dean suspected it had been during the flare of Cas’s wings that had made Dean himself look away).

Nevertheless, Dean took vicious pleasure in stabbing him to be sure. A few times. Harder than may have been necessary. Satisfying as that was, Dean had higher priorities; he left off after the third jab and threw the sword back down so he could turn to Cas.

His heart ached anew at the lost look on Cas’s face, and he had to reach out and reassure himself Cas was really still there, really okay. He moved slowly, tentatively, so that Cas could pull away from his touch if he needed to. Instead, as soon as his hand cupped Cas’s cheek, stroking tenderly over the ridge of bone, Cas collapsed into his arms.

Dean would have panicked at the fall, if not for the bone-crushing embrace Cas wrapped him in a moment later.

“I couldn’t control it,” Cas said against his shoulder, shaken and wondrous simultaneously. “I was trapped inside my own body, just watching. I was so scared it would hurt you, and I couldn’t stop it.”

“ _You_ were scared for _me_?” Dean laughed and it came out more wet than amused. “You got _stabbed through the heart!_ ”

Cas straightened, though he kept one hand gripped on Dean’s upper arm as he peered over at the fallen assassin. “By one of your knights,” he said dryly. A gentle squeeze of Dean’s bicep reassured him that Cas didn’t suspect him, which was good.

Still, he had to defend, “That’s not an American knight. I’ll find out how he got in and got the uniform, but I swear he’s not one of ours. In fact, my money’s on him being Malevillain.”

Before Cas could voice the question that scrunched his features together, no fewer than ten actual American knights burst in with swords drawn, Benny and Jo at the front.

They took in the scene in moments, then the tension of their stances eased, but only slightly.

“Your Highnesses,” Benny greeted, oddly formal; Dean knew it must be serious. “You’re needed urgently in the throne room.”

“Everyone’s fine,” Jo added quickly as Dean blanched, terrified and guilty—he hadn’t even thought of his parents or Sammy, who could just as easily have been targeted. “But King Michael’s got a sorcerer’s window open and is threatening war because he had news that Prince James was murdered by Prince Dean’s personal knights.”

Cas responded before Dean could, growling, “Is that so,” in a voice that really didn’t invite an answer. Letting go of Dean, he strode towards the door and the formation of knights parted to let him pass. Partly it was the respect due to his station, but Dean thought mostly none of them wanted to get in the path of the wrath drawing thundering lines across his face.

They arrived in the throne room to find the king and queen seated stiffly, Sam standing beside them, and Raphael several feet apart from the others, all focused on a floating portal in the middle of the room. King Michael sat in the center of the window, his glittering white robes somehow menacing in their finery. His countenance burned with more emotion than Dean would have thought possible from a Celestine before he really got to know Cas. That their king himself displayed such rage openly, and to another set of monarchs, was nearly unthinkable; as Dean understood Celestine culture, it would be seen as a sign of weakness there.

Indeed, the man next to him—he had a circlet like Cas had worn, so likely one of his other brothers—wore a much more impassive expression. He was speaking when Dean and Cas entered, but Dean didn’t get a chance to hear what he said. As soon as the two of them came into view, Michael lept to his feet and took a step forward, blocking the other man from view entirely.

“Castiel!” The naked relief in the king’s voice did far more than any of Cas’s arguments to reassure Dean of Michael’s love for his brother. “You’re alive? Are you all right? What happened?”

Each rushed question endeared Michael to Dean further. For the king of a stuffy and formal land, he showed absolutely no hesitation in displaying his concern for Cas; he even called him Castiel, which Cas said had only ever been done in private.

For his part, Cas wasn’t quite as softened. A little softened, though, because after Michael’s brows twitched at his formal but impersonal greeting (“Blessings upon you, Your Exalted Eminence”), he added, more genuinely, “Michael. I’m fine. I have not been murdered, though an attempt was made.”

In an instant, Michael’s anger reappeared and he rounded on John. “I don’t know what sort of game you and your son think this is, but if—”

“Michael!”

Everyone but Dean seemed shocked at Cas’s outburst. Well, no. Dean was shocked too. Cas had been getting bolder for sure, but yelling interruptions at a king in a roomful of people was downright rude. It actually pleased Dean a little, seeing his husband so confident. It spoke well to his future as king.

Raphael wasn’t so impressed. “James!” he scolded in a warning hiss. “You dare to address your king—”

Cas wasted no time in directing his ire from one brother to another. “He’s not my king anymore, Raphael. I love the crown of Celestine and intend it no disrespect, but my loyalty must lie elsewhere now and Michael is my brother first and foremost. And when _my brother_ is being an ass to _my king_ —” He turned back to Michael. “—I have a duty to intervene.

“Michael,” Cas said again, no longer angry but still stern. “The man who tried to kill me was not an American, but a Malevillain. And as you can see, he did not kill me. I’m curious how news of my death reached you so quickly, when Dean and I were the only witnesses to the attempt. Someone is trying to use us to start a war, brother.”

Michael frowned, “Lucifer,” he asked, turning his head, “who told you—”

Michael cut off as he cast his gaze to the other Celestine; Lucifer had risen and his neutral face fallen away to a sneer. An angry red glow burst into the air around him and Michael took a step back.

“I’ll just have to do this the traditional way,” Lucifer drawled. “Kill the king, claim the crown, the whole _dull_ coup thing. It’s not like the kingdom will resist too hard when I cure the blight for them. But Castiel, as I’m razing your new _homeland_ to the ground—oh, by the way, Dean, congratulations on your apparently magic cock. You appear to have fucked the uselessness right out of my darling baby brother.

“Anyway. While all your people are getting slaughtered and your cities burned and salted, Castiel, just remember: I’m going to kill you very slowly and _very_ painfully for ruining my plans.”

The things that happened after that all happened very quickly. Michael yelled for the guards; Lucifer’s eyes glowed red and they flew back, slamming high onto the walls and hanging there by some invisible force. John rose, sword drawn, and stepped protectively in front of Mary; she also rose, pushing past him, and drew her own sword to move in front of Sam. Dean didn’t have a sword (and very much regretted that), but still put himself between Cas and the sorcerer’s portal.

He very much doubted that any of them would be able to do anything defensive if Lucifer was able to get his magic through the window. Sam and Cas might have a chance, ironically enough; they were the only ones who’d displayed any sort of affinity for magic. Still, it felt like he was doing _something_ instead of just watching the drama play out.

Michael’s blade didn’t join the party. He held both hands out to Lucifer, beseeching. “Stop this, Lucifer. There’s still time to atone.”

Lucifer snarled, “You’re weak, Michael. You’ve never deserved the throne. You don’t have the balls or the brains.”

The fiery light around Lucifer intensified as he stalked towards Michael, but the king held his ground.

“It takes neither of those to sell out your kingdom and your family to their enemies. How long have you been toying with demonic magic, brother? It always has a cost.”

“Angels, demons, it’s all nonsense and legend. There’s no difference between our magic and Malevale’s, except that they’re willing to share it!”

If that had something to do with the red glow in Lucifer’s eyes and the warping power around his body, Dean had to disagree. It looked nothing like the pure light that had surrounded Cas, and Lucifer definitely didn’t have wings. It really didn’t seem like a good time to insert himself into the argument, though.

In any case, the argument seemed to be over. Lucifer raised his hand menacingly and the violent red light flared around him before lashing out and surrounding Michael with vicious shards of flame that pulsed malevolently. There was a moment of stillness, no one even breathing as they waited. Then, with a screech audible even through the sorcerer’s window, the light encircling Michael drove inward.

A blinding flash overtook the room and Dean had to look away. As his vision cleared, he turned back just in time to see the magic rebound away from the king, slamming into Lucifer and knocking him to the ground. He lay stunned as Michael stood over him.

“I am the rightful King of Celestine, Lucifer. The Novak line is descended from angels; that is neither myth nor nonsense. Our magic is sacred, bound to protect the King and the royal line. You cannot harm me while the kingdom recognizes me as its intended ruler. Even had you succeeded in usurping me, you would not be welcomed by the throne.

“By my rights as King, I find you guilty of unspeakable crimes against my kingdom, including attempted fratricide and regicide. The penalty is death.”

At last, Michael drew his sword. He sunk it into Lucifer's chest without further ado.

Behind Dean, Cas made a choked off noise. It wasn’t quite a whimper, but when Dean looked back at him, there were tracks of wetness down his cheeks. Dean pulled him into an embrace.

“He was my brother,” Cas whispered against his neck. He sounded more angry than sad, though Dean could feel him shaking. “He was still my brother.”

A clearing throat turned Dean’s attention back to Michael, though he didn’t let go of his husband. The Celestine king faced the magic window again. Dean would almost have believed that he was completely unaffected; but his hand trembled where it clenched at his side, his eyes shone with unshed tears, and his voice wavered when he spoke.

“Your Majesties,” he said, “Your Highnesses. Please accept my apologies, on behalf of Celestine and of myself, personally, for all that has transpired here.”

“We have much that still needs to be discussed,” John replied gravely, “but we do not hold you accountable for the actions of your brother.”

“Thank you.” Michael sounded near breaking, struggling to keep his focus on the Winchesters with his brother dead at his feet. “If I may beg just a brief respite before we resume negotiations...”

“Of course,” said Mary. “Take all the time you need.”

After a brief exchange of condolences and schedules, Michael closed the sorcerer’s window and the American royal family was left alone.

Entirely alone.

Raphael was gone.


	15. In Which Things Wind Down (Then Up, Then Down Again)

Raphael could not be found. Dean had joined his knights in scouring the palace, had dispatched yet more to search the lower town and the roadways, but after an hour with no results he returned to their room, to Cas. He looked as exhausted as Cas felt, and almost as sad. Cas couldn’t bear it, had to interrupt when he started to say, “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve done nothing to apologize for.”

“I left you here when you needed me, and for what? We don’t even know how he got out of the palace, much less where he went from here.”

Cas crossed to the door, still open with Dean standing forlorn in the doorway, and closed it for him, drawing Dean back with him to the bed. “If I’d needed you here, I would have told you. You have responsibilities; looking for Raphael was more important.”

“Maybe if we’d found him,” Dean grumbled. “Maybe if we knew for sure that he was responsible for getting that assassin into the palace and in one of our uniforms. But it feels like just a waste of time when I should’ve... Well, nothing to be done now.”

They both sat on the mattress in silent contemplation for a moment before Dean asked, “Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer, just... It’s been bothering me.”

“Of course, Dean.”

“What was all that about angels and demons? I didn’t really follow the whole thing about magic and Celestine and Malevale.

Staring down at his hands, Cas wondered if Dean was really curious about that, or if he was trying to ask, as circumspectly as he could manage, about what exactly it was that had happened with Cas when he’d been stabbed. The answers to both questions lay along the same path, so he started the answer without needing to know the destination.

“According to Celestine folklore, the royal line is descended from heavenly beings called angels. There’s—there’s quite a lot of mythos around them, where they came from and why they left, but the main lesson of the stories is that the source of magic in Celestine comes from, or was somehow left to us by, those beings.”

He paused. If Dean wanted to ask about his own unexpected magical outburst, this would be the time. But Dean just nodded and waited for Cas to continue. Either he’d already figured enough of it out that he didn’t need to demand answers, or he had no desire to push the topic. Cas was fine with both reasons; he was having enough trouble processing all that had happened without adding more fuel to the fire.

“Malevale’s kings and some amount of the nobility—accounts vary—were sprung from an opposing force, demons. Thus the difference in their magic, thus the enmity between our two kingdoms.

“By now, nearly everyone regards it as myth. Except, apparently, Michael and who knows who in Malevale. And... I find myself not so certain anymore.”

He thought he held back the uncertainty in his voice, but perhaps he’d gotten less adept at concealing his emotions. Or maybe Dean had just become better at reading them regardless. Whatever the explanation, the only other question he asked was, “How are you?”

Cas considered; an honest evaluation proved surprisingly difficult. “Angry,” he said, even as he reasoned the emotions out in his mind. “Confused. Grieving. I don’t think that will end just for knowing what sort of man Lucifer really was.”

Dean leaned into his shoulder, a solid and comforting presence. Cas could feel his warmth even through the shirt he’d finally put on, a light blue tunic in the American style. “It’s okay to mourn. He was still family, even if he wasn’t a good brother. And it’s okay for you to be sad and angry about what both of them did, too, because being family means they should have loved you and taken care of you.

“And,” Dean added, “if Raphael ever gets caught, you can decide what you want to do to him. Technically his sentence would be death, but you could commute it to life imprisonment if you wanted. Or you can kill Raphael yourself. Or I can kill Raphael. Or we can send him back to Celestine to be tried there. There’s really no end to our options, love. Anything, whatever will help you.”

“I don’t know,” Cas admitted to Dean’s chest as he turned into his husband’s arms.

Dean rubbed a hand up and down his back. “That’s all right. You don’t have to think about it now.”

Despite all the trauma of the morning—a morning that yet hadn’t passed into the heat of afternoon—Cas found himself responding to Dean’s touch, warming and flushing with desire. It felt shameful, after all that had happened, to give himself over to lust, to surrender to carnality when his brothers were dead, mourning, missing. It was selfish and callous.

And yet.

He’d accomplished much over the past week by allowing himself to act in ways he’d never dared previously. His relationship with Dean, his friendship with Charlie and Jo and Benny, his personal knowledge of Americana; even his understanding of the depth of Michael’s feeling for him had been gained through what he once would have called selfishness. He had a right to want things for himself. He was allowed to need things, and to ask for them without feeling guilty.

Raising his palms to the sides of Dean’s face, Cas pulled his husband in and let his lips and tongue ask for him. He poured as much of his sadness and uncertainty and hope into the kiss as he could, then let Dean chase them away as he kissed back. They carried on for long minutes, mouths meeting and hands roving, until Cas ached with need strong enough to subsume all his other roiling emotions.

He pulled away and dropped his head to Dean’s shoulder, dragging his hand up Dean’s chest over his shirt. When his fingers brushed the spot where his name hid beneath the fabric, a static-like jolt tingled up his arm. Suddenly desperate, he reached for the hem of Dean’s shirt and fumbled there, trying to pull it up but getting tangled around both their arms.

“Hey, hey,” Dean soothed. He took Cas’s hands off his shirt and held them in his own, ducking until Cas was forced to meet his eyes. “Tell me what you need, love.”

“This.” His own voice sounded foreign to Cas’s ears, broken wheels rolling over shattered glass. “You. Just—us.”

“All right.” Dean stripped his shirt off as if it was nothing, yanking it up and over his head in a single movement. Helping Cas remove his, again more gracefully than Cas had managed, he said, “We can do that, absolutely. Will you let me take care of you?”

Even if he’d wanted to, Cas was powerless to say no. He let Dean press him back against the mattress. Gazing up at his beautiful husband as Dean straddled his hips, he couldn’t stop himself from splaying his hand over Dean’s heart. His fingertips rested just at the edge of the tattoo there.

They’d made so many vows the day before, all the traditional and expected oaths of Celestine rite. What they hadn’t promised bothered him, though; what he hadn’t promised, really, because Dean kept using the word and Cas’s heart sang with joy at each repetition. He needed Dean to feel it too. He needed to take care of Dean as much as he needed Dean to take care of him.

“I love you. I will always love you,” he swore.

“Gods, yes,” Dean breathed, then he was kissing Cas again, bent over him, hands threading through his hair. Cas’s arms wrapped around him, gripped into the flesh of his shoulder blades like they were the only things holding him from a fall. They might well have been; he was dizzy with desire and lack of air.

His hips bucked up of their own volition and he felt Dean’s hardness against his own. Groaning into Dean’s mouth at the sensation, he did it again. And again. He rocked his erection into Dean’s steadily through their pants, a delicious pulse of pleasure that had him nearly at the edge embarrassingly quickly.

Dean stopped him before he could get carried away. He lifted up on his knees just far enough to deny Cas the pressure of his cock, one hand still stroking over Cas’s cheek a he looked down.

“We can finish like that if you want.” Cas had grown to know and adore that sweet, hesitant tone of his voice so quickly. Tender, soft, reverent; like all that mattered in the world was Cas. “But if... Gods, Cas, I want to be inside you so bad. I swear I won’t let it hurt, I want it to be so good for you, I’ll—”

“Yes. Dean, _yes_.”

Cas longed to feel Dean, to be connected, grounded by him. He was nervous, a bit, as Dean stood and removed all their remaining clothes, but he suspected he would be whenever they tried something new together. He trusted Dean not to hurt him, though. He’d touched himself there, slipped a slick finger in just to see, but he’d never found the spot that had made Dean gasp inside himself. Dean would, though; Dean would do everything in his power to make this and all of Cas’s other first times amazing.

He pressed kisses to Cas’s thigh as he knelt between them and circled a cool, slippery finger around his entrance. “You sure?” he asked. Cas nodded, hoping Dean was watching because he didn’t trust his voice.

Of course Dean was attentive; he had to have been watching, because at that he pushed the tip of his finger past the ring of muscle and Cas gasped at the feeling. It was vastly different from doing it himself; Dean’s finger was thicker than his own, and its movements more pronounced for being unexpected. Dean took care working it fully in: time and gentle thrusts, more oil and whispered reassurances. Once he did, and he crooked it slightly and traced tiny, searching circles inside Cas—

“Oh!” Cas exclaimed as lightning raced through his nerves. His cock jumped and leaked as Dean rubbed the spot again; he had to bite his lip to keep the pleasure from overwhelming him so soon. Dean, perfect, masterful Dean, stopped teasing it and eased his finger out, then returned with two that dripped fresh, cool oil along Cas’s groin.

Though Cas was near desperate tears by the time Dean deemed him ready, his cock dripping all over itself, he’d held back his orgasm; they both wanted to be together when climax came. Dean slicked up his long, curved cock, trapping his own lower lip between his teeth as he stroked it.

“It might be easier on your stomach,” he suggested regretfully.

Fortunately for both of them, Cas refused. “I don’t care about easy. I want to see you.”

So Dean guided Cas’s knees over his shoulders—a stretch, but not a painful one—and rubbed the head of his cock over Cas’s hole. Cas pushed back against him; he was done waiting, he needed Dean to be joined with him. He would’ve begged, but Dean didn’t make him. Dean pressed into him, slowly stretching what little his fingers hadn’t opened, and Cas was complete.

Though the first push burned a little, the pain wasn’t bad. It kept him focused, kept him from coming just at the knowledge that Dean was _inside him_. Then Dean moved, rolling his hips just a little, and the curve of him made his cock drag along that spot inside Cas with each movement. There was no stretch, no burn, no pain; only Dean, setting him aflame from the inside as they rocked together.

Voice tight with controlling himself, Dean asked, “Is this okay?” Cas’s only answer was to push back. He lifted his hips to meet every thrust and Dean groaned, giving in to their combined need. He fucked into Cas—for there were no more delicate words for it; Dean fucked him and it was hard, brutal, and beautiful.

The head of Dean’s cock rubbed over and over the place that made Cas’s nerves sing and orgasm crashed over him before he knew it was coming. He rocked into it, hips thrusting, hands fisted in the sheets, a groan spilling from his lips. His climax shook through him for what felt an eternity, more powerful than any he’d experienced before. He was helpless even to speak.

When he came back to himself, he found Dean staring down at him with open-mouthed lust. His chest was covered in his own spend and heaving from the magnitude of his orgasm. Dean fell upon him with devouring passion, moaning into his mouth and nipping at his lip.

“That was amazing,” Dean said. “You’re amazing. Do you need me to stop, or can I...?” Dean’s cock twitched inside him, still hard and wanting.

“Keep going.” It was a breathless moan, but Dean heard it nevertheless.

And oh, how he obeyed. It didn’t take him many more thrusts before he shook and lost himself inside Cas, but he made each one count. They rocked Cas’s entire body as Dean slammed into him, almost overwhelmed him as they worked over throbbing nerves, broke something inside him that desperately needed breaking.

By the time Dean fell to the mattress beside him, they were both tearful and shaking. They kissed across salty eyelids, stroked trembling fingers across tearstained cheeks, and murmured adorations and condolences all at once.

“I’m so sorry how it happened,” Dean whispered into Cas’s ear once they’d recovered themselves somewhat, “but I can never regret that it brought you to me.”

Too many things swelled in Cas’s heart in response to that, myriad promises and sentiments, so that all he could say was, again, “I love you.”

As they cradled each other into much-needed rest, it was more than enough.


	16. In Which There Is One Country That Matters, Two Kings, Two Princes, Three Princesses, and Some Conclusion

John and Mary Winchester abdicated at a relatively early age, happy to pass their crowns and thrones on to a son and son-in-law who everyone knew would rule just as evenly and prosperously in their stead. Though they still made themselves available for advice and ceremony, most of their newly freed time was spent spoiling their handful of grandchildren rotten.

As Mary had predicted on the night of their betrothal, Dean and Cas stumbled upon not just one, but five potential heirs, and took in every single one.

Only Emma had been a deserving orphan in the forest, though. Bobby John was found as a baby, abandoned in the palace stables one cold winter. Krissy was the daughter of one of Dean’s knights, a widower with no other family who was killed on a patrol by bandits. Claire and Ben were, or at least claimed to be, Lucifer’s children with Princess Lilith of Malevale. They showed up at the American palace one day, alone but hand in hand, and six-year-old Claire informed the two kings that her fairy godmother had guided them there safely.

“She told me we were supposed to be here,” Claire said, defiant and wary as she stared up at the two highest powers in the kingdom, surrounded by guards and nobles in the throne room. Then, without a trace of deference, absolutely sure she would be obeyed, “So you have to let us stay or else.”

Cas placed his hand on Claire’s forehead and both their eyes flared with blue fire. He never told Dean what passed between them, but Dean didn’t need him to; Cas dropping to his knees and gathering both children to him, murmuring brokenly, “You’re home now, you’re ours,” was enough.

All five of them flourished with Dean and Cas, and Americana flourished along with them. The kingdom adored its royal family; the royal family adored its kingdom.

Sam met and married a noble’s daughter who he definitely embarrassed himself with, but not in the way Mary meant; Jess didn’t get pregnant until at least a year after the wedding.

With Lucifer's death, the blight ceased spreading all but overnight. All the sickened crops and animals recovered within the week. Yet another crime to be added to his list of sins. Celestine recovered in his absence, but mourned as well for the loss and betrayal of two of its princes. Michael ruled it well, and a bit less sternly than he had before. Only a bit.

Malevale, perhaps unsurprisingly, descended into civil war. One faction was led by Princess Lilith, whose father, the king, had mysteriously vanished—but not before publicly denouncing her as an heir. The only other claimant to the throne, building a surprising amount of support based only on his relation to Lucifer, was the fugitive Celestine prince Raphael. The kingdom tore itself apart for decades with no interference from the outside world.

Dean and Cas didn’t live out the rest of their lives entirely without trouble, which was probably a good thing. They needed a bit more excitement in their lives than that; they would have found it incredibly boring. Cas never gained complete control of his magic—it was instinctive rather than intentional—but it intervened in on the occasions when his sword or Dean’s, or Sam’s more trained magic, or the knights, or Charlie and her veritable army all failed. Those occasions were very rare indeed.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> This actually started as a fill for my DSB bingo card, with the squares betrothed/engaged, nicknames, fairy tale, writing on skin, and inspiration. Then it spiralled out of control and I used a different fill for that. This, naturally, seemed perfect for Tropefest instead.


End file.
